Campo Visit

During our campo visit, we stopped at the village of Kanapata, which produced llama.  There I started to notice the really wide age gap.  The majority of the people who visited us were in their 70s with young, young children.  I didn’t see a child over 9 or 10 years old.  The whole time I pondered where the teenagers to middle-aged people could be… Out on their farms? In the cities? Both? Then I wondered how in the hell reproduction works. I hope it’s appropriate and parents leave their children in the countryside with the elder while they find work.  But there was one young girl there... So maybe one of the kids were hers and she didn’t want to leave them.  How sad, though.  Trusting extended family to take care of your children is hard… I couldn’t do it.

I talked to a family there—an older couple, their daughter or granddaughter, and a little boy who was either the young girl’s brother or son.  The older woman asked us why we were here.  I explained we were taking a class in La Paz for a month and doing social science research.  I gave her the whole spiel.  She ended up being the only person who questioned why we were visiting the campo.  I don’t know if the others didn’t want to ask for fear of being rude, or if they didn’t care.  Probably a mix of both.  Many just seemed glad to have us visiting. But still, this woman was an exception.  I’m still processing why this could be.