Don’t get me wrong but we only drink with food

Don’t get me wrong, but we only drink with food.”"But, che-e-e,” he said, prolonging our onomatopoeic patronymic into a nasal wine, “why didn’t you say so?” And with a clap of his hands he ordered some good old cheese sandwiches which went down very well. He ordered beer which everyone downed in one, except for me.”What’s the matter, my Argentine friend, don’t you drink?”"It’s not that, but in Argentina we’re not used to drinking like this. On the recommendation of the Civil Guard in Puno, we made for the police station where we found a sergeant, pissed to the gills, who took a liking to us and invited us for a drink. Wasn’t he in fact a typical product of an education which damages the person who is granted it as a favour to demonstrate the magic power of that precious “drop of blood”, even if it came from some poor mestizo woman sold to a local cacique [boss], or was the result of an Indian maid’s rape by her drunken Spanish master?CAFE SOCIETYJuliaca, 28 MarchTHE first part of the journey was not very long as the driver dropped us off in Juliaca, where we had to find another lorry heading north. As he spoke, the convulsive clenching of his fist betrayed the spirit of a man tormented by his own misfortune and also the very desire he attributed to his hypothetical example. He spoke of the need to set up schools which would help individuals value their own world, enable them to play a useful role within it; of the need to change completely the present system of education which, on the rare occasions it does offer Indians an education (education, that is, according to the white man’s criteria), only fills them with shame and resentment, leaving them unable to help their fellow Indians and at a tremendous disadvantage in a white society which is hostile to them and doesn’t want to accept them.The fate of these unhappy people, he said, is to vegetate in some obscure bureaucratic job and die hoping that, thanks to the miraculous power of the drop of Spanish blood in their veins, one or other of their children will somehow achieve the goal to which they aspire until the end of their days.

His voice took on an inspired reverence whenever he spoke about his Indians, the formerly rebellious Aymara race who had held the Inca armies at bay, and it switched to deep despondency when he spoke of the Indians’ present condition, brutalised by modern civilisation and the impure mestizos [mixed race folk], his bitter enemies, who take revenge on the Aymaras for their own position as neither fish nor fowl. The man also had Indian blood and sided with the Aymaras in the interminable debate against the Coyas [Indians of Inca origin] whom he called wily and cowardly. The driver called the “Argentine doctors” and invited us into his cabin, the height of luxury in those parts. We immediately made friends with a schoolteacher from Puno who had been sacked by the government for being a member of the APRA party [American Popular Revolutionary Alliance]. When the lorry began to climb, we realised the full extent of the privilege: not a whiff reached our nostrils and no flea could possibly be athletic enough to jump up to our refuge.

On the other hand, the wind whipped round our bodies and within minutes we were literally frozen stiff. The lorry kept climbing, so the cold got more and more intense. We had to keep our hands outside the relative protection of our blankets to stop ourselves falling off; the slightest movement would have sent us headlong into the back of the lorry.Halfway through the afternoon, the drizzle which had lashed our faces for some time turned into a real downpour. As a special privilege we were given some planks to sit on which separated us from the smelly, flea-ridden human cargo giving off a heady but warm stench beneath us. I don’t know.IN THE REALMS OF PACHAMAMAPuno, Peru, 26 MarchBY THREE in the morning the Peruvian police blankets had proved their worth by reviving us with their warmth, when we were shaken awake by the policeman on duty and sadly forced to leave them behind as we set off on a lorry heading for Ilave It was a magnificent night, but bitterly cold. maybe one day, some miner will joyfully take up his pick and go and poison his lungs with a smile.