The Starry Night

An unforgettable trip

Maybe one of my holidays of a lifetime was when I went to the Chiquitania (in the East of Bolivia). I travelled there with a group of friends and the man who would be my future husband. As the majority of this work team were Spanish, I thought that it would be interesting to get around to the Chiquitania route for many reasons (cultural diversity completely different from the west of the country, diversity in fauna and flora and above all because of the incredible historical Jesuit tradition of its churches, its architecture, art and music offered by the towns that make up the Chiquitania area).

The first part of the trip was by plane, which apparently did not involve much difficulty (1 hour or so). However, we had the bad luck of losing some of my husband's luggage, which was strange because it was a very short flight and with no flight change. After making the corresponding claim in addition to the paperwork, my husband began this adventure only with the company of his philosophy books. Far from looking like a set-back, my husband took this mishap philosophically (never better said).

Once we arrived in Santa Cruz (the closest city to the Chiquitania) we rented a car, we took on a guide, who at the same time would be our driver, and whose references that had been given to us were great but we certainly did not know him at all. That is how it all got started.

Without any more ado, the first day we could arrive without problems in San Javier, the first town that is included in the Chiquitania route. We were all amazed by the landscape, weather, people, and so on. At dinner we decided to spend the night in the village, especially because one of the team members is a biologist and needed more time to make his photographic record. The funny thing was that the only free place we found was a guesthouse and it only had double rooms. We had no problem sharing the room with the team, until the guide told us in a regretful tone that he would sleep in the car. All of us decided to include him with one of the team in a room ... sorry for the friend who shared the room with the guide, because he said that his snoring did not let him sleep for a moment and that if he repeated this experience he himself would be the one who would sleep in the car.

The whole route to San Ignacio was great, until we decided to stop in the middle of the road to walk and swim a little. By the time we realized, the guide-driver was not among us, nor the car, nor our ID, passports, money, etc. I must confess that I was so scared because we were in the middle of nowhere and I was the only one responsible for this group. Finally and fortunately for us, the guide reappeared and he told us that he had relatives near that place and he had decided to go and see them. Fortunately, nothing had disappeared. On the contrary, we were invited to a very special barbecue with the guide's relatives.

With this fact, life gave me a lesson of faith in some people. I was surprised, not only myself but also the entire team, by the behaviour of this family, that they had not only welcomed us all that night, but also when they learned that my husband had lost his luggage, they gave him typical T- shirts and shirts of the area. We were all thrilled to see so much generosity. It was undoubtedly a night of great surprises including a jam session.

Along the route I was able to learn and discover much more about my own culture and its history. It was also the first time I had the experience of sleeping in hammocks, in a kind of a tatami, of tasting fruits that I had never heard of, enjoying baroque music live, admiring the skill of the artisan carving of each and every one of the churches, to be involved in pre-Hispanic rituals, to get goose bumps when a young man explained to us that Chiquitania's churches were built on a horizontal level because God is among us and not above us, to enjoy dreamy landscapes, to get back to nature and perhaps the most impressive of all of this, to see the most breathtaking sunrises .... what colors!

Our adventure that initially was going to last for five days was extended to ten, and returning to our homes became much more difficult than we had imagined, we had created some bonds that continue right up to today.

El camino del guerrillero

I must admit that since I have lived in Spain, it is not that I now have a chauvinistic feeling towards my country of origin, but yes, I have been more interested in what happens there.

That is why in the few opportunities when there are news or talk about my country I am hooked. Precisely this happened to me last summer, while I was zapping channels, I was amazed to see a scene well known to me. It was the case of a kidnapping that happened in the 90s. Although the film was halfway through, I could not stop watching it.

For this reason, the last time I was in my country, I looked for that video, which left me with a double sensation. On the one hand, that the social injustice that exists in my country is the engine of many types of endless struggles. And on the other hand, that even the "bad guys" can and do have a good side.

The film which I refer to is: El camino del guerrillero, made by Von Andreas Pichler in 2007. The video begins with the news of that moment, reporting the tragic decade of the kidnapping of businessman Jorge Lonsdale in 1990, as well as the capture of some of the members of the armed group Comisión Néstor Paz Zamora (CNPZ) and identifying the leader of said group: Miguel Nothdurfter.

Pichler, far from focusing only on the kidnapping, tries to make the spectator know, and tries to understand what led Miguel Nothdurfter to take up arms. For this reason, the cinematographic work revolves around the figure of Miguel Nothdurfter, a native of the alpine region of the Tyrol, who received his basic training for the Franciscan order in the city of Bolzano. 

In the first part of the video, we can see and meet Miguel Nothdurfter from childhood until his youth, through the eyes of his mother, his relatives, his friends and his teachers. We can see that Miguel Nothdurfter was a charismatic leader, restless and a dreamer. Feeling a call to serve the most disadvantaged, Miguel Nothdurfter was ordained as a Jesuit and then went as a missionary to Bolivia in 1982.

From his arrival in Bolivia he could see and live the worst face of inequality and social injustice from the front row. He soon realized that being a priest was a privilege that contrasted to the way of life of many poor people. And feeling that from that figure of priest he could not reach the working-class and, even more, could not achieve any change, he decided to leave the Jesuits to study sociology and feel part of the ordinary people.

As a university student, he understood the reality of Bolivia and its problems. As a result in 1987, Nothdurfter created the Ejército Patriótico de Liberación Nacional (EPLN) and later the Comisión Néstor Paz Zamora, with the intention of transforming society through revolutionary action.

From this moment Pichler skillfully intertwines the events, (the kidnapping of businessman Jorge Lonsdale -representative of Coca-Cola in Bolivia-, the attack on the American embassy, ​​dynamiting the Kennedy's monument, among many), with the comments of the survivors of the armed group, with the letters that Nothdurfter sent to his mother and friends). The impact of all this is to identify that the armed group was made up of young people no older than 19, 20 or 22 years old. It is compelling to hear their dreams of wanting a different country, their audacity, their loyalty, their fears before those facts and their tragic descent. Likewise, you can detect the lack of experience and naivety they had when facing the police agency.

The descent in many ways was fatal, the death of Lonsdale, Nothdurfter, some members of the armed group, the suffering of Nothdurfter's mother, who like many of us could not stop thinking about whether this fight made sense or not. I was shocked by all the testimonies of the survivors on the other side. But undoubtedly I am disturbed to listen to Nothdurfter still with a very German accent singing the most popular cueca of the country, which says: long live my country Bolivia, a great nation, for her I give my life too, and my heart too.

It is incredible how he loved this country and gave everything he had for a change that we are still waiting for.