16 CultureShock! Bolivia
and the government. The typical inhabitants were rugged
individualists with their own lands, poor but self-suffi cient.
Guevara’s strategy involved winning over the inhabitants
of the region—equivalent to converting hermit-like Idaho
survivalists into socialists.
Had he campaigned nearer to the Altiplano, he would have
made contact with the more oppressed sectors of Bolivian
society: the miners, whose life expectancy was 40 years,
and the peasants, who were given unproductive lands during
the agrarian reform of the early 1950s and had no capital or
machinery to exploit their crusty terrain.
At the very moment that Che’s guerrilla campaign unfolded
in isolation, the world famous Domitila Chungara, leader of
the Miners’ Wives Organisation, was involved in marches
and hunger strikes. She said: “When they speak of El Che,
a great wound always opens up inside. We were not even
aware of his presence in Bolivia!”
Che Guevara remains an icon for various sectors of the
university community at Bolivia’s national university, but we
will never see a Che Guevara School of Geography honouring
the fallen hero.ALTITUDE AND THE BRAZILIAN
FOOTBALL TEAM
Che Guevara could have chosen a more hospitable region
but didn’t. The Brazilian national football team would have
made a better choice if given the chance. In the elimination
matches leading up to the 1994 World Cup of Soccer, Brazil
was obligated to travel up to La Paz to face Bolivia’s national
team. Brazil, the eventual World Cup champion, was heavily
favoured. But in La Paz’s Hernán Siles Stadium, Bolivia shut
out a fatigued Brazil squad 2–0, virtually clinching a berth in
the World Cup. Weeks later, in the steamy Brazilian lowlands,
a Bolivian squad that favours cool weather was demolished
by the same Brazilian team.
La Paz’s altitude allegedly made the difference in the fi rst
match, although Bolivians argue that Brazil’s brutal 40 plus
degree centigrade heat, fuelled by 100 per cent humidity
was a compelling impediment against the Andean squad in