However, hey! I have something to say today! This post is dedicated to my anthropology paper, which I am only 300 words in and should have started it earlier, but also I would like to explain my reasoning for taking an anthropology class as an engineer while abroad. This blog was initiated after my trip to Bolivia with Engineers Without Borders in 2010 because there is more to aid work in developing countries than just the brute aid and financial support. This is why I find anthropology important. Anthropology is the study of humans, human interaction, social history, artifacts, not very engineery. However, anthropology provides us with an opportunity to explore the way other humans around the world work. American aid work has been notorious for raising money for inexperienced aid workers to go to a remote village, build a water pump, feel like they have saved the world, then leave with an awe-inspiring cultural experience. Little did they realize, the pump they built only lasted 3 weeks after they left, none of the locals knew how to fix it, and on top of that, they completely dried up the aquifer residing below their village, which also damaged their agriculture. So which is better: inexperienced aid workers helping a village improve its infrastructure or not helping a starving village at all?
Makes you feel guilty, doesn't it?
I think every aid worker should take a course, join a group in anthropology, or think before they act to sign up for a volunteer project in another country. It gives you an alternative perspective on how much you are actually helping a village and what damage you could inflict.
Back to my paper, I am writing about a specific cultural artifact from Bolivia, a coca bag. Coca is very important in the Andean culture. It promotes good health, wavers hungers, and supplies a bit of energy to keep going through the day. A lot like the way a cup-a-joe is used in America--without it, I am not sure I can go on with my day. I would like to share with you one of my encounters with the locals one day at the job site, when we were collecting rocks to make gabion wall structures.
“Collecting large rocks for the drywalls needed in the rural
road reconstruction for the last two hours in the hot Bolivian sun, it is time
for another coca break with the locals. As an American engineer, I am not used to having
five to six coca breaks throughout the day, however these
breaks are absolutely necessary in the Quechua culture. Each adult
carries a colorful patterned pouch either around his neck or in his belt strap
full of dried coca leaves and a paste of vegetable ash. An elder, missing most of his front
teeth and green ooze dripping down the corner of his mouth, offers his coca bag
towards me, wanting me to partake in their coca break. He opened his bag and
gestured that I take a handful of leaves and a pebble-sized amount of ash.
Clueless about how to properly put the coca in my mouth, I timidly placed a few
leaves with ash in my mouth and slowly chewed. The locals grinned like they
just watched the funniest moment of their day and gestured that I had to take a
lot more into my mouth. I stuffed my mouth full of leaves, like a squirrel
preparing for winter, and chewed up the leaves until they were a manageable
size. This all became increasingly difficult to do because my tongue became
numb. The dried coca leaves became a big oozing wad of green juices, and now I
was the one with a green-toothed smile.”-July 2010
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| Coca break with the village workers |
I am writing about this because I remember before I became more acclimated to the Bolivian culture, I was frustrated at how many breaks the locals took when there was work to be done under a short time frame. I was absolutely oblivious to this daily routine and thought that they were just getting high on the job for the fun of it. Silly me. On a serious note, they were not getting "high," coca is used among the peasants because it numbs pain, hunger, and provides a little energy to make it through a labor intensive day. By the way, it takes some four hundred pounds of coca leaves to provide a pound of relatively
pure cocaine. I was associating this harmless vital cultural experience, with own my tainted cultural views of cocaine in the US.
Anyways, for all you engineers out there, maybe we should initiate coca breaks on job sites--but more importantly, educate yourself outside of math, science, and structural analysis.
