Monday
1:43 pm
Agostina didn’t show up this morning. I’ve felt sad all day, not because of that at all, but out of some emotional dissatisfaction, an unsettled state of feeling. I wonder what it means to be here working like this, as in, what meaning is coming out of it, for those I meet and interact with. Lately, there’s been an air of performance to all this, with very little substance to back it up or make it fulfilling. I’m The Anthropologist, and I’m here because I want information from The People so that I can put together a fabulous ethnography when I return to my real home. And working here is only supposed to be meaningful in so far as it bestows legitimacy on my project as a “field experience.” It’s not because of the people I meet here... my relationships here have been entirely circumstantial - a mere result of my decision to come here and force my way into this community - and conditional upon when and what I want to learn from people. They are real relationships, of course, but not based on genuine, interpersonal affection or interest… instead, their basis is in exchange. I want specific kinds of things from these people and they often want specific kinds of things from me: money, political instrumentality, novel technological toys. I’m a rich gringo girl to them, a window of opportunity. If I wasn’t, I’m not sure they’d have the time of day for me.
Some encounters, of course, have been marked with incredible warmth, friendliness, curiosity. Also, thankfully, many people seem pretty unphased by my being here, like I may be just another person. A great deal of my own questioning and skepticism may just have to do with the fact that this is, at a very fundamental level, a strange and tricky situation…the very “inter-cultural entanglement” I talked about before actually experiencing it. This isn’t my home, I am so different here, as are all the archaeologists are, and so there may be a certain amount of uncertainty on both sides about how to go through with this. I mean, how do you deal with a bunch of strangers coming into your town from a far-away place to dig stuff out of the ground, most of which you never really thought was important? It'd make sense if, in an attempt to understand who we are and what we were doing, people here would just lump us together under stereotypes, or their own agendas and plans for success. Just as locals or “natives” so often have general, inaccurate values or meanings attached to them by anthropologists, we probably come to represent the gringo, the West, money, opportunity...rather than people you'd like to get to know for who they are.
It's pretty disheartening to think about such a huge barrier existing between us and them...but it starts to make sense when you consider the fact that, well, there’s just a lot more shit involved in this kind of interaction. Not bad stuff, just context, and so much of it. That is, I happen to have walked into a place thick with histories and networks and things to protect….this is people’s home, their turf. It’s complicated, of course, and it’s important and delicate, especially considering the situation (historical and onward) for Indigenous peoples, the rebuilding going on still, the balancing of so many different positions, needs, battles. It’s a lot to handle, and my attempts to understand it, to be at home here, just to be here, are not going to be easy. That’s something I remember feeling as soon as I got off the plane – heaviness, the weight of serious challenge – but without recognizing it for what it was and neglecting to tell myself, warn myself not to expect to know everything all at once, and certainly not to feel comfortable or competent or loved right away. If it’s anything at all, this is a process. It’s going take a while. And, despite my desires to walk away from here with gorgeous experiences and a full, happy heart, I’m coming to realize now that I might not. Being here and interacting with people is going to make me feel angry sometimes, lonely at others, and frequently like an outsider, an opportunist, a naïve colonialist bastard. I have already, even. It’s a part of this work; the part they don’t always tell you about. And I’ve just got to take it, deal with it.
7:48 pm
Arrived at site today around 3:30 pm. Almost all new workers working at A___ (grad student)'s pit…very nice folks who all shake my hand happily (A___ says, cynically, that it may be because they think I’m another archaeologist who will be hiring more cuadrillas). I walk over and say hello to the folks working the wheelbarrow and sifter, including an older woman who seems very chatty and friendly. She speaks to me in an Aymara-Castellano blend, and I try to communicate to her that I don’t quite understand but she just smiles a big, gold-toothed smile and talks anyway, hoping for the best. We are able to get across to each other that it’s really quite windy today. I learn later (with the help of another worker’s translation into Castellano) that she is my friend E___'s older sister. I believe the word used is “jiriti” or “jitiri.” “I’m learning Aymara!” I tell them, half-informatively/half-declaratively.
I sit with A___, the grad student, for a bit and talk about interview stuff. He introduces me to all of the new workers, one of whom is C____, brother of the local shaman. Everyone has told me about him and how I have to meet him, because his name is basically my name with an “-o." When we meet and shake hands at the site everyone erupts in laughter and the kind of “ooh!" which indicates, "yes, finally!" There’s a word here for two people who have the same name, indicating and recognizing a connection between them that is important, perhaps spiritually. I can’t remember it, though, so I just address him in our introduction as “mi hermano,” my brother, and we laugh. He smiles big, seems very warm and friendly. A___ jokes that he “likes the ladies.”
I ask the men a little bit about the pit (“hay algo?”) but “no hay nada.” At the other newer pit, up the ways a bit, the workers have found several bits of bone. This seems to be a fill, where soil taken from other, perhaps far-away locations was deposited and packed in order to create an earth mound or hill. Its chronology indicates that all the things in this section of the stuff were settled at the same time – including the more regal houses up the hill. “Very exciting stuff here,” A___ says.
As he and I sit by the other pit, A___ offers a suggestion for my project. “I was thinking,” he says, “you might get a better response from people, and they might understand better what you’re doing, if you approach it like you’re gathering a history of Khonkho.” Let them tell you what they know, he said… and you’ll probably still get a lot of the same responses you were looking for, but it’ll make more sense to people. I REALLY like this idea, I think it’s perfect for my purpose. First, it’s a lot easier to approach people for interviews – a “history” of Khonkho is much more familiar to them than an analysis of the excavation and ideas of history. Second, it might even be more effective at getting people to open up about how they think about those ideas. Third, it lets them teach ME something, lets interviewees put things in their own words and guide me, in a way, rather than putting me in the position of stealthy investigator, already knowing exactly what it is I want to find. So, yes! This is what I’ll do, at least in initial interviews. Get people to warm up, think with me through a few sessions and then maybe we could get to talking about the excavation, but that’s not really necessary. I’m sure I could get a lot just from hearing them talk about history – conceptions of past (and what’s important about it, what stands out) > social memory, etc. And this is great because it’ll allow me to talk to and include community members who may be less familiar with the excavation or know next to nothing about archaeology (and that itself may be something to analyze).
Also, there’s space for this kind of ethnographic work in the Project. A___ tells me that J___, the co-director, often says things to the community (at meetings, etc.) to the effect of, “We don’t know everything about the history of Khonkho, so we need your help.”
Good talk with S___, another grad student, at the site later on about the “disconnect” between archaeologists and community members concerning understanding of the excavation and its importance. He wonders if the conversion methods of the church and evangelical movement (for example, being told that your ancestors are in hell) may have something to do with people’s limited interest in the ancient past But we agree that it’s more complex than that: it’s a more synchronic kind of thing, a hybridization of Christian and Indigenous beliefs. We debate a little about which word is more accurate – synchrony or hybridity – but can’t decide. Anthropological theory is so convoluted sometimes. S___ tells me about an example of this whatever-you-call-it phenomenon which he remembers from last year: at the wak’ta performed up on the mountain behind camp prior to excavation there, the yatiri called out to all the mountains and huacas, and then out to Saint So-and-So and Saint So-and-So.
S___ recommends that I read two ethnographies: Catherine Allen’s The Hold Life Has (about coca and cultural identity) and Abercrombie’s Memory and Power (and Pathways) (?), which, he emphasizes, is a really, really good one and I have to read it. Also, recommends talking to P____, the shaman/yatiri, who knows a lot about this stuff and once showed him some seriously old documents related to the church and the founding of the town.
I talk again to Ex___, a lady working at the site who I met a few weeks back. She asks when I am going to work; I tell her I’m not going to excavate, that I’m an anthropologist, and I’m going to interview people about the history of Khonkho. I ask her (right away, directly) if she wants to do an interview. She says yes, anytime this week. Yes!
When 5:00 comes around (faster than it ever has), I wait for the archaeologists but Ex___ invites me to walk back with her and a friend – can’t remember her name. We have a great conversation on the way back about her work – farming papas and quinoa on family farm, not for selling but to eat. She is 30 years old, she tells me – I can’t believe it, I say, because she looks like she’s 24. She has one daughter, she says, and asks if I have any kids. I tell her no, that in the U.S., most women don’t have niños until the age of 30 or 35, at least in the city. They work, I say, and it’s hard to find a good husband. She marvels at this, says that in Khonkho a lot of people are married by the age of 15 – that’s just life in Khokho. I like her ability to look at her “culture” from an outside perspective… but only because it’s what I do (in this culture and my own), and it gives us some common ground. She asks about the U.S. – “que lindo país,” she says with awe, what a beautiful country – and says she’d love to go someday. She knows about NY, but only from a map. I tell her it’s very small, but a beautiful city. I ask her when she had her baby – 16 years old, she says – and whether it was with a husband or a boyfriend, when did they get married? She was never married, she said, he left. “Where?” I ask, in that kind of outraged, “how dare he!” tone common to women. He just left, she says. I ask if her mother helped her with the baby. Her mother was/is not alive, she says, but her father helped her out. “Lo siento, lo siento,” I say, and am suddenly, belatedly embarrassed by how personal my questions are. She doesn’t seem to mind at all, though, and talks to me like we’re old friends. I ask her if it’s common for the men here in Khonkho to leave their families like that. Yes, she says, but there are some padres here, so there are men who stay. I tell her it’s the same in the place I come from, where many men feel that they just don’t have to be fathers and leave. Really? She asks. Yes, I say, “es la suerte de la mujer, no?” It’s the luck of the woman. We “hmm hmm” in agreed disapproval. I add that the women are “muy fuertes,” though, very strong, and tell her she is very strong, and she thanks me.
We come up to the road that leads to my camp – we say “ciao” and “hasta mañana” and part ways. I head back to camp for tea and rolls with the crew, then type up some fieldnotes. Big crowd tonight – all the Bolivian archaeologists have returned from elections in La Paz, and the three Bolivian archaeology students will be staying here for a few days. They tell us that the elections went well, that a bunch of districts (or cities?) have declared autonomy. I’m not sure what that means exactly for Bolivia. I’ll have to talk more with them and try to figure it out.
A few mallkus show up later, signing forms – probably getting paid. The lady maestro arrives a little later. J___, the co-director, takes a picture of her signing something (“The first female maestro!” he says proudly) and she gets bashful. I later learn from M____, one of the Bolivian archaeologists, that the lady maestro was actually fired today by mallkus and other maestros, who complained that she didn’t know what she was doing. M____ and I talk about how fucked up it is – hardly any of them know what they’re doing at first. “It’s a process,” she says. You have to learn it. Bastards.
Rest of the evening is spent transcribing fieldnotes onto computer, playing DJ, which makes me pretty happy as usual. This is dorky, but just for recordkeeping’s sake, I started the night off (pre-dinner) with some salsa and seventies funk (Cymande), then moved into Ella Fitzgerald and Billie Holiday and other poppy jazz, then into some French romantic stuff (Serge Gainsbourg, Edith Piaf), then Bob Marley and some afrobeat… THEN rock ‘n’ roll (Bowie, the Velvet Underground, T. Rex, Television, Iggy Pop, other swaggerful bands) and some lighter, more country-beat rock (Bob Dylan, Magnetic Fields). Everyone – or, me and the other music dork in the room – was just overjoyed to hear the Magnetic Fields, singing along and laughing at their ridiculous and wonderful lyrics, so I played 69 Love Songs, Vol. 1 the whole way through, twice. I suppose being out here, spending so much time working in a cold, cement-walled workroom makes you enjoy music a whole lot more than usual. Or, at least, pay a lot more attention to what it is you’re listening to.
Read some Moby-Dick before bed – made my heart really happy, especially the talk of whale history and the great souls of men, the courage of Starbuck. Wanted to laugh out loud a few times at Melville’s lovable overstatements, but too many people sleeping in the room, so I kind of buried my face in my sleeping bag and snickered. Drifted off to sleep thinking of the sea, so very, very far away right now.
