Ima Rayku runa simita munani yachayta? (Why do I want to learn Quechua?)

The hiatus of The Long-Legged-Short-Torso Diaries has come to an end. I restart my blog to chronicle my own process of learning to speak Quechua in Cochabamba, Bolivia. My decision to learn an indigenous language is related to my research on political humour and social change in the Americas as this experience is part of my own engagement with linguistic hegemonies and racist structures of power that shape Latin American humour.

Quechua is a racialised language in the Southern cone that marks its speakers as "outsiders", "inferior", "uneducated/uncivilised", "dangerous" and "backward". There has always been rampant discrimination against indigenous peoples including campaigns of genocide, economic exploitation, political and social marginalisation, imposed assimilationist practices that begun in colonial times and continue to today. (For more information, I would say, just google it!) Indeed, the pressure to assimilate remains and many indigenous people have changed their names, stopped wearing traditional clothes and refuse to teach their children to speak Quechua in order to protect them from discrimination. In fact, during colonial times, speaking Quechua was punishable by death. So of course, my decision as an outsider to learn the language has been greeted with confusion by some Spanish-speakers in Bolivia. A light-skinned Bolivian looked at me as if I was crazy to have decided to learn "that" language. On the other hand, I am greeted with elation by the average Quechua speaker when I start speaking to them in Quechua. I also notice that if I speak quechua in the market, the asking price for any item I am buying is IMMEDIATELY cut by, at least half. So in many ways, learning the language is just a good economic decision.

Apart from the bargaining tools that Quechua offers me, I chose to learn the language because while many Latin Americanist on the left engage with questions of indigeneity and comment on the overwhelming silencing and exclusion of indigenous voices in institutions of power, I know very few who have actually invested in learning an indigenous language. In this way, there continues to exist a certain distance/disconnect between the academic and the indigenous subject despite the presence of rigorous academic debates on indigeneity. I am not suggesting here that learning the language now makes me an authority on everything to do with indigeneity, nor that if they do not speak an indigenous language, then they have no right to critique linguistic hegemonies/structures of power in the Americas. Rather, I argue that the language gives access to realities that have been systemically invisibilised, undervalued and ignored and knowledge of such realities will help me not to participate in and perpetuate the exclusion of indigenous peoples in my academic work. So learning to speak Quechua is an attempt on my part to reduce the distance between myself as a Latin American scholar and the Andean world, to ensure that I place value on the culture and stories of the most disenfranchised and marginalised in my own work and to generate the broadest possible perspectives of the realities that shape performance practices especially humour in Latin America.

Maypi? Where?
It is winter in South America but Cochabamba is one of the warmest cities in the country because it lies in the centre of Bolivia. However, the weather moves from extremely cold weather in the morning (sweaters, hats, underpants and gloves are a must) to very hot temperatures in the afternoons. The constant climatic shift from one extreme to the next in the span of 24 hours can be very hard on your body so I had to take it easy for the first few days.

I am now living with a young professional Roxana, her son Elias and her parents Doña Petra and Don Lino. Her parents and the cook Julia are quechua speakers and her younger brother Eric studies Engineering at the University. Although, only the parents and the cook speak Quechua, Doña Petra insists that I speak to all of them in Quechua especially her grandson Elias because everyone in the family understands it perfectly. They are a middle-class indigenous family from the countryside of Potosí and they run a shop from the house itself.

I am studying at the language school: Escuela Runawasi. It is run by Joaquín and his Swiss wife Janine. Joaquín was part of an armed guerrillero movement in Bolivia. He was tortured in Chile for three months then exiled to Switzerland where he met his wife. After his involvement with the armed struggle, he now defines himself as a pacifist but politically he remains on the ultra left. He is one of my Quechua teachers since it is his mother-tongue. My other professor is an indigenous womyn called Ilda who defines herself as a staunch socialist. She has done a lot of work in adult literacy with indigenous, quechua speaking womyn, indigenous workers unions and is very vocal about womyn's rights.

I live in Villa Juan XXIII and many of the people living in the barrio are indigenous people who migrated from the countryside looking for work. The people in this area voted overwhelmingly for Evo Morales (the first indigenous president) and they mostly identify on the left. There is much elation right now in the community because a new law has just been passed requiring that Quechua be taught in all schools across the country and that all public servants learn to speak the language. Of course, this is a historic moment for the country, as it has created a new space not only for indigenous languages and cultures but also for indigeneity itself within the national imaginary. I will provide a summary documenting reactions to the new law in another post.

The journey to Bolivia
Now I have travelled a lot but I think my 30 hour journey to Bolivia is worthy of mention. I bought the cheapest ticket I could find without paying attention to the length of the journey from NYC to Cochabamba, Bolivia. I flew from NYC to Miami, Miami to Lima Peru, Lima to Santa Cruz Bolivia, Santa Cruz to La Paz, La Paz to Cochabamba. I left on Monday at 3 30pm and got to Cochabamba on Tuesday at 8:00pm. Needless to say I was exhausted. As we flew to La Paz, I noticed we were flying over mountains with snow on their tips and then we landed in the airport El Alto just below a few of the mountains. When I landed in La Paz I exited the plane and noticed the strangest thing: there were oxygen masks at each of the passport/ immigration/customs booths. In fact, below the "Welcome to Bolivia" sign, there were a few tanks with more oxygen masks around them. I thought to myself, "how strange that the message you would send to tourists visiting for the first time is "welcome to Bolivia, have some oxygen...you're gonna need it!" Anyway, I collected my luggage and went on my merry way. I checked into my connecting flight to Cochabamba and as I started walking to pay the airport tax I realised that my heart was racing, my head was spinning and I could hardly breathe. Then I remembered that La Paz's airport: El Alto stands at 4,000 metres above ground. That's higher than CUZCO! But I thought to myself, "I've never gotten altitude sickness. I can handle this. Just look at all these locals walking around just fine." I took a moment to collect myself. Then I looked behind me and the flight attendant who checked me in was no longer standing. She was just on the ground...motionless.

Okay she wasn't. I'm kidding.

But my suitcase was on the ground.

And I was on top of it.

M-O-T-I-O-N-L-E-S-S

!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I hadn't actually lost consciousness (YET!) but I could barely move. Then I got up and started hugging the wall really tight like a crazy person. A older lady approached me and asked if she needed to notify security so they could bring me an oxygen mask. I told her I was okay, got a hold of myself. She told me to eat something sweet so I bought a cinnamon roll. I know that sounds strange but all the other foods on sale were unfamiliar so I went with what I already knew. It gave me a boost, I thanked the lady, got on my flight and left.

Moral of the story: Cinnamon rolls save lives.