Bolivia - my adopted country
| The first time I went
to Bolivia, was with the purpose of getting to know Osvaldo's family. He had told
me that he grew up in a favela, but I didn't really believe him until I saw the house,
where he spent the first 25 years of his life. To me it looked like someone just began to
build it, but it had looked like that for 30 years. Only after Osvaldo paid back his study
debt to his father, did the house start receiving more attention, and now it looks
finished with plaster and pale yellow paint. |
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| Osvaldo's family has a
road side restaurant in a small village at the Altiplano. Here is Osvaldo's father and his
new wife preparing a traditional Watia dinner cooked by hot stones buried in the ground. First,
some flat stones is heated thoroughly in a fire on the ground. Then the stones are
removed, and meat, potatoes, corn cakes, bananas, peas, etc. are mixed with the hot stones
and piled up at the fire place.
Then everything is covered with leaves and sand and left to cook in the ground for
about an hour.
Here is Osvaldo's half brother, nephew, and father making sure that it is properly
covered so that the heat doesn't escape.
After an hour, everything is dug up and ready to eat. It is one of the most spectacular
and tasty Bolivian meals that I know of.
In April of 1998, I moved permanently to Bolivia and during the process of getting
Bolivian by Marriage I lost my Danish Nationality. Having lost the safety and convenience
of the Danish passport, I had to become 100% dedicated to the development of my new
country, in order to secure a nice future for myself and my kids. |
 
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| Challa is
a very important Aymara tradition of paying respect to Pacha Mama (Mother Earth). It is a
charming and convincing tradition that I immediately adopted. It involves decorating all
the important things you own by serpentines, confetti, and balloons, and sprinkle them
with alcohol while saying your prayers that they will work well for you the next
year. Here we are making challa on our land in Ovejuyo together with family and
neighbors.
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| One year I forgot to
make challa for our bed, so I decided to make a "Permanent Challa" quilt as a
head board. It was also partly inspired by one of the Feng Shui rules I had recently read
saying that it is important to have a large head board on your bed in order to secure
stability in your marriage, and our bed had hardly any head board at all. |
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| Coming from a completely flat
country, I am naturally fascinated by the mountains of La Paz. I especially love the 7000
m2 piece of land we have bought in Ovejuyo in the outskirts of La Paz. 
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Here my parents have
climbed to the top of our land. From there you have a magnificent view of all of La Paz. My
father is an architect and has already helped me design a spectacular adobe house
composed of many intersecting parabolas.
It is really hard for me to wait to get started. |
| Since we regularly
have visitors from Denmark who would like to see more of Bolivia than just La Paz, we
invested in a share of a luxury jungle hotel in Chapare. Unfortunately a coca-war broke
out in the region before the hotel was finished, and they had to halt construction. After
that the owners ran out of funds, and this is what our 5 star jungle hotel looks like now.
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| One of the
most important attractions when my family is in La Paz, is my dentist. He is very nice and
gentle and the large savings compared to dental work in Denmark can help recuperate some
of the costs of the transatlantic trip. The place is rather primitive, and according to
Troels a visit to a Bolivian dentist ranks almost as high as climbing the 7 kilometer high
Ilimani among the friends in Denmark. |
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