COCA and I, in BOLIVIAN CHAPARE

When I was running the solidarity operation Rayos de sol in Bolivian region of Chapare, men and women used to gather in the evening, at the light of the oil lamp, in front of the table where the little mat with the leaves was prepared.

Although not yet fully aware, I was passively taking part in the ritual of the sacred green Coca, absorbing the aura of ancestral heritages that had never before convened me so intensely; by then I had clearly caught the meaning of the sacred mystery of Coca in its communitarian dimension, however I was anxious to find out the real mechanisms by which Coca leaves were considered a source of physical and mental energy.

During a meeting of the Union of Namatamojo, in the deep jungle along the riverside, they were all sitting in front of the little mat with the leaves; while everyone kept busy in realizing the traditional ritual of Coca, unexpectedly, Emilio, the more active member of the solidarity operation and an executive of the local Union, urged me with the gentle firmness of a challenge of honor: doctorita … pijcha, the word in quechua language meaning to put in the mouth and suck on some Coca leaves, according to the pattern of the traditional ancestral ritual.

I realized the urgency of taking action, knowing well that in the Andean world a sharing invitation is a cultural main key of welcoming those people the community wants to enroll as new members; if the invitation isn’t immediately picked up, it would be considered rejected and never again repeated …

So I was there, reaching out my hands, almost automatically, towards the mat with the leaves and repeating what I had been observing other people doing: I got the three sacred leaves, called Coca k’intu, lifting them up to the three levels of the cosmovision, to finally bring them into my mouth and suck them, enjoying a kind of pleasantly sour juice.

Apparently my baptism in the ancestral ritual of Coca had accomplished smoothly, at least I felt so by the expression of undisguised consent on the enigmatic faces of people around me; with spontaneous gestures, other leaves joined the first ones, making up a small bolus, called pijchu, I kept sucking for a timeless time.

It has been an unrepeatable moment of magic towards the horizons of Destiny where the sacred Andean Coca had left an indelible mark and would continue to hold the ranks of an adventure for me no longer negotiable, on that famous … path just traced by walking, as from the words of the Spanish poet Antonio Machado.