Reconocimento

Uru-Chipaya girl, Bolivia. Eneas de Troya

This cortesía is something I have noticed since I started going to Latin American events with ex-pats in the last year or so. 

People from the Americas ask how you are.  They thank you for being present, they love that you love their music, their food, their stories, their culture.  There is reconocimiento, general recognition of you and your value as a person.  It follows certain phrases or constructions.  It is also just a different way of speaking and interacting, at least, so I intuit.  You don't rush to your point. You spend time seeing the person, being with them. This means everything slows down, your connection can be quieter, more personal.  There is consideración, not acting selfishly, does the person you are with have everything they need? 

At a language exchange in the city I met a a Bolivian woman on holiday.  She was who was keen to go to the milonga for the first time. She already danced at the world famous carnival of Oruro, her home town. Oruro is the area of the Uru, the oldest of the Andean civilizations.  There have been ceremonial practices in the area dating back to the Neolithic - Chalcolithic cusp.  The Uru were in the area about 5000 years before the Incas, around Lake Titicaca where they build floating island and along the  Desaguadero River as far as lake Poopó.   In less than forty years lake Poopó has gone from an area twice the size of greater London to a salt bed.  The Uru predate the Aymara people along the modern day Peruvian - Chilean - Bolivian borders, the Quechua people through the Andes and the Tiwanaku civilisation at the south east end of th Lake Titicaca. There are three groups now:

Uru-Chipaya, Uru-Murato, and Uru-Iruito. The Uru-Iruito still inhabit the Bolivian side of Lake Titicaca and the Desaguadero River. Two years ago there were 200 Uru left around lake Poopó.

But I didn't know any of that when I met here or I would have asked about those cultures. This was someone who comes from the cradle of one of the oldest cultures in the world, which the effects of globalisation has almost wiped out, which still has an ancient, famous carnival that blends elements of the many culture which have lived there over the millenia and she had no anger, no resentment, wasn't offended that I plainly had never heard of her city. She was just very calm and grateful to be offered a ride to the milonga.  She shared songs from her culture with me, songs that represented her region. 

One was llamarada. both a song and a genre which is sung by llama herders.  She said a lot of songs in her area were sad and people drank a lot. 

Necesito olvidar para poder vivir

No quisiera pensar que todo lo perdí

I need to forget to be able to live

I wouldn't like to think that I lost everything

In the song he means a woman, but maybe it's a wider reflection of something more generally sad in the culture.  Given what has happened to them it isn't surprising.

The Bolivian Evo Morales was one of few presidents in Latin America of indigenous descent.  He is Aymara, while Alejandro Toledo (Peru, 2001-2016) is Quechua.  The dogged reformer and champion of liberalism, Benito Juárez, who served multiple terms (1858 - 72) in Mexico was of Zapotec indigenous descent and is now considered a national hero. Morales had to flee to Mexico and Argentina, seeking asylum after allegations of electoral fraud enveloped his attempt to run for a fourth term (two were allowed in the Constitution).  Toledo was arrested in the US for accepting $20 million in bribes from a Brazilian construction company.  He is still fighting extradition. Arguably, Juarez and Morales are the two indigenous presidents who have done most for raising the profile of indigenous groups.  There have been many other presidents however who were not from indigenous groups who have done much for minority or oppressed groups.  Gustavo Petro, Colombia's first ever president from the left, and still in office, is the most recent example. 

Another song she shared Tú, Mi Vida Eres Tú is sung and danced at carnival.  The tú refers to the he Virgin (or mamita) of Socavón, literally, 'sinkhole'.  Oruro became a mining centre after the Spanish arrived. San Simón, also mentioned in the song is a syncretic figure, a protector, particularly of miners.

  

But before I knew this, we were walking along the Newington street in Edinburgh, one evening in June, I mentioned this courteous way of relating to people that was specific to Latin America. Spanish people relate to each other very differently compared to us in the UK but it is still not the way many people  from the Americas relate to one another.  She agreed. She had lived in La Rioja, Spain for ten years and said you get pulled into a different way of behaving.  She said she noticed it, even within the family when she went home, that there was more cortesía back home.

We agreed it is slightly different from country to country in Latin American but also that it was something shared across those cultures.

Later, I wrote to her and she wrote back many lovely things, alegraste mi día y lo hiciste bellísimo. Could there be a better chosen compliment? She loved her first time dancing tango and hoped to continue.