We Will Fight (Continued)
2009But I didnt come here to get any sleep I came because the place scares me because I want to overcome the FEAR and understand. During the following days I am not alone, company comes into Don Diogeness hostel in the form of an amazing amount of anthropologists, ethnologists, sociologist, tourists, journalists, musicologists, photojournalists and others from all over the world. People working on their PhDs, analyzing the significance of the Tinkus every aspect and looking for clues about its origin. Many disappointed not to find what they have been reading in schoolbooks. If the physics principle that you alter an experiment by observing it is in anyway true for the social sciences, no wonder the Tinku has changed with all the International observers presence. The night of the third of May the Pasante of Macha (in this years case it was Jose Luis Pelaez) the person that brings the cross to church, calls for a gathering of invited guests on the top of a hill overlooking the town. There he offers chicha the fermented beverage made here from rye and coca leaves for people to chew. People are colorfully dressed in traditional outfits with women wearing bowler hats adorned with plastic flowers and men wearing helmets resembling those of the Spanish conquistaroders with ostrich feathers sticking on them. Sad Andean music is played with the Charago and the flute while dancing in circle and signing “Vamos a pelear” we are going to fight! This is the only phrase I understand, as the rest is song in Quechua and I have no translator! After an hour or so the group descends the hill headed for the church “Vamos a pelear”. After delivering the cross to Padre Cabezas, the pasante Jose Luis Pelaez invites to an all night party at his home, more chicha and coca leaves but also 96% pure alcohol will be available. Later in the evening all the members of the outsider and international community about 40 people are summoned to a meeting at Padre Cabezas parish (no goat in sight) with the local, regional and communal authorities, supposedly to listen to a lecture about on the Tinku ritual. It turns out the meeting is all about money, about how much money one has to pay to film or take still pictures, and about the image damages caused by press and TV reports that allegedly have unjustly portrayed the Tinku as savagery. The debate starts with a fee of 200 USD for video equipment and 50 USD for stills cameras to degenerate with the representatives of the communal authorities offended by the offer of 10 Bolivianos (USD 1.3) put forward by a tour operator from Potosi that came with 8 tourists and complained that fees should be communicated in advance.