In the farming town of Rodeo, the education revolution kind of looks like a science fair. Little kids in booths papered with posters earnestly explain how to harvest ch’aki jawas beans. They chant about corn in Quechua, an indigenous language. The moms and dads here say they can’t imagine this happening when they were little.

Almost two thirds of Bolivians are indigenous, and they’ve long suffered discrimination here, including in school. Alejandra Cruz said that when she moved from a small village to the capital La Paz, the other children tormented her because she spoke Aymara, another indigenous language.

“They hit me, they pulled my braids. They kicked me when I passed by. They dumped my breakfast all over me. And then there were insults,” Cruz said.

When Cruz had her own children, she didn’t speak Aymara to them so that they wouldn’t suffer the same insults.

Today Cruz teaches Aymara to preteens in a tony part of La Paz, something she never could have imagined when she was a little girl.

“I thank God for a government like this,” Cruz said.

Under a law passed in December 2010, all schoolchildren must learn Quechua, Aymara or some other indigenous language, as well as Spanish and a foreign tongue.

Marielle Cauthin, who worked in the Ministry of Education while the reforms were in the works, said the idea is to make schools respect and embrace local cultures. For example, she said, teachers used to scold children who had dirty hands from working in the fields.

“What teachers need to understand,” Cauthin said, “is that the dirt on their hands reflects their work in the country.”

The education reform law is loaded with bold words like “decolonization,” “liberation,” and “anti-imperialist.” It’s the kind of rhetoric that helped Morales win votes and adoration.

But that adoration is starting to fade.

Protesters in Cochabamba recently took to the streets, chanting that Morales said things would change, but that was a lie. Demonstrators have forced Morales to back down on fuel price hikes and the rerouting of a planned highway. Many of the same people who backed Morales now question whether he really stands for the things he promised, like indigenous rights and the environment. Education reform hasn’t been as explosive, but it could still be a fight.

Jose Luis Alvarez, president of the teachers union of La Paz, is a radical Marxist who thinks the education reforms don’t get at the real inequalities in one of the poorest and most unequal countries in Latin America.

“The new law is condemned to fail,” Alvarez said.” The only thing that they’re doing is repeating things that have failed.”

Alvarez said he believes that because economic inequalities still exist, the reforms will suffer the same fate as the last round of education reform in the 1990s. Back then, the government also tried to bring Aymara and Quechua into many schools, but many indigenous parents resisted. They worried their children would face discrimination. Those fears still exist for some families.

Maria Luisa Velarde, who teaches at a technical school, said her students prefer English because it gives them more opportunities for jobs; it opens more doors. She said they don’t see Aymara as being very important even though their parents and grandparents speak it.

In the meantime, Bolivian schools are preparing to implement reforms. Teachers are taking night classes to learn indigenous languages. But schools complain that there’s been little training to explain what “decolonization” means for first graders or even high-school seniors.

In a high school in sprawling El Alto, Principal Luis Cameo Borda said they’re still waiting for more details. They aren’t sure what this revolution means for them.

If the Bolivian government doesn’t give them clearer instructions about what “decolonization” really means in the classroom, Borda said, nothing will change.

Emily Alpert reported this story with the help of the International Reporting Project.

Thousands of people lined the streets to greet them.

The protesters marched for two months from their home in the Amazon.

They’re angry at President Evo Morales, and his support for a project to build a highway through their territory.

That territory is within a protected area of the Amazon rainforest.

This national park straddles the Bolivian states of Cochabamba and Beni.

So, your Geo Quiz question is: what’s the park’s name?

The answer is the Isiboro Sécure National Park and Indigenous Territory (TIPNIS). Anchor Lisa Mullins gets details from the BBC’s Mattia Cabitza in La Paz.

Lake Titicaca is the answer to the Geo Quiz. It is located high in the Andes on the border of Peru and Bolivia ans is a couple of hours away from the Bolivian city of La Paz. The lake faces serious environmental issues including pollution and over-fishing and receding water levels. Anchor Marco Werman talks to BBC’s Mattia Cabitza who visited the lake.

In a cobblestoned plaza in central La Paz, 14 women compete in a sort of beauty pageant. They’re doing all the usual stuff, wearing pretty dresses, dancing, answering questions. But the women are being judged on more than their looks.

They’re competing for the title of “Cholita Paceña.” Cholitas dress like their great-grandmothers, wearing embroidered shawls, long skirts and a bowler cap. The outfit is one of the iconic images of Bolivia, where cholitas, and the older women called cholas, still dominate the country’s thriving sidewalk markets.

Each contestant comes on stage to the music of a Bolivian folk song, performs a traditional dance, and then gives a short speech in an indigenous language and answers questions about Bolivian culture.

One contestant nervously lists the ingredients of three local dishes. The La Paz chairo is made from carrots, turnips, spinach, chard and all sorts of vegetables. Then, mashed dried potato, wheat berries, pig skin, and some mint are added to give it a special flavor.

At this time of year, there are nine of these pageants across the city. Neighborhoods send their best dancers to a citywide contest. Winners earn privileged positions in religious processions.

Ramiro Burgos, the mayor of central La Paz, was one of the judges of tonight’s contest. He said the popularity of these contests is growing.

“It was beautiful,” Burgos said. “I think we had more participants than we were expecting. There were 14 participants and last year there were just six.”

Burgos said that when he was young, events like this didn’t exist. “Years ago, the national culture wasn’t valued,” he said. “Customs from outside were preferred. Now it’s different. There is a change in attitude. That’s why many public institutions make a point of promoting our national culture.”

Patricia Ortega works as a receptionist at the museum that helped put on this contest. She said there are three key parts to the cholita outfit. You need the long skirt, an embroidered shawl folded into a triangle, and of course, a bowler hat. There are four colors of bowler, Ortega said. You can get one in brown, gray, beige or black.

Contestants say the events aren’t just a way to fight back against discrimination, but are also a way to stay in touch with their family traditions. Dionicia Quispe, a petite woman in her early 20s, said she wears cholita clothing even when she goes to work at a bank.

“Our mothers wore these skirts,” Quispe said. “This is who we are. In the past, there was a lot of discrimination against those who wore the traditional clothes.”

She said these contests have happened before over the years, but that traditional people have become more assertive since the country elected Evo Morales as president. He is the first indigenous president since Bolivia was founded.

“When this president came in, who is more in favor of us, the Aymará indigenous people, that allowed us to say, we can do it, we can even become president,” Quispe continues. “We all have the capacity to make it.”

And what happens when there is a new president? Quispe said the next president may well be a chola.

Poland's Christ, the King statue (Photo: ProhibitOnions)

The giant statue that’s on our radar this time took 10 years to build. Like Rio’s it depicts Jesus Christ with arms outstreched and it rises some 100 ft above the ground. The location is not as picturesque, it’s in a town in western Poland, not far from the German border. People there claim theirs is the tallest Jesus in the world, though others may quibble.

So, where in Poland is this towering Jesus?

Well, it’s in Świebodzin. Helen Pidd has been to see it closeup. She writes for Britain’s Guardian newspaper.

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Guardian article

Bakery owner Manuel Seminario sells pasta, cookies, energy bars, wine, and toothpaste made with coca (Photo: John Otis)

Coca leaves provide an energy boost, when chewed or consumed in tea. They’re used to treat headaches, toothaches, and intestinal cramps, among other things.

What are the two countries we’re looking for? Here’s one more quick clue: these countries are neighbors but only one of them lies on the Pacific.

Answer: Bolivia and Peru.

By John Otis

At an outdoor market in a slum in the Peruvian capital, Lima, a coca vender stuffs handfuls of green leaves into plastic bags. She has many loyal customers who say that chewing coca suppresses hunger and provides a boost of energy.

One buyer, who’s a truck driver, said sometimes he gets tired. “So I chew a little coca,” he said, “and I no longer feel weary.”

Back in 1961, the United Nations Single Convention on Narcotic Drugs classified the coca leaf as a dangerous narcotic, putting it in the same league as cocaine and heroin. But critics say that’s absurd — like equating barley with whisky.

Coca leaves are high in calcium and can relieve altitude sickness. Many South American Indians use coca in religious ceremonies. Before he was elected president of Bolivia, Evo Morales headed his country’s main coca growers union. And he’s been known to say that it’s scientifically proven that coca leaves in their natural state don’t harm human health.

Symbolic quest

Morales has been lobbying to eliminate the provision about coca chewing from the UN treaty. His quest is largely symbolic since chewing the leaves is permitted in Bolivia and Peru, where Indians have chewed coca leaves for centuries. There’s even a Peruvian government agency that buys coca from farmers and sells the leaves to chewers. But proponents say the Morales amendment would remove the stigma from coca and enhance the market for tea, soft drinks and other natural products made from coca leaves.

At a Lima bakery, workers mix cookie dough using green flour made of ground-up coca leaves. Manuel Seminario, the owner of the bakery, also sells pasta, energy bars, wine, and toothpaste made with coca.

But Seminario can only sell to people in Peru because the UN treaty bans the export of coca leaf products. On the international market, Seminario claims coca-based energy drinks could be a healthy alternative to Red Bull. He’s so passionate about coca that he and his wife, Mariel, host a weekly radio program to promote the plant.

Among UN member states, there’s wide support for easing restrictions on coca chewing. But the change requires unanimous support, and the Obama administration opposes the Morales amendment, saying it would send a confusing message amid the war on drugs.

There are other concerns about giving coca the UN’s stamp of approval. Just a tiny fraction of the 300,000 tons of coca leaf grown each year in South America is used for chewing or food products, according to Peruvian economist Hugo Cabieses. The rest is mixed with gasoline, uric acid and other toxic chemicals to make cocaine.

Number of chewers dropping

Meanwhile, the number of coca chewers may be going down as highland Indians migrate to the cities and give up traditional practices.

“Each day fewer people chew the coca leaf because young people leave the Andean regions and they do not carry the custom anymore,” said Alejandro Vassilaqui, head of CEDOS, a Peruvian anti-drug organization that works closely with the US government.

Yet coca leaf products are also winning some new converts. Coca tea is served at hotels throughout Peru and Bolivia. Jerry Borscheid, an American tourist bound for Machu Picchu, swears by it.

“I have not drunk a cup of coffee since I’ve been here,” Borscheid said. “It’s been this every morning.”

In fact, Borscheid and his wife have considered bringing some back home to Minnesota — until they remember that coca tea is illegal in the US.

But among the indigenous tribes that do live there are the Ayoreo. They live deep in the jungle and have little contact with outsiders but ranchers and loggers are steadily closing in on the Ayoreo:

“They’re constantly having to flee really and leave their villages and gardens where they grow crops and all their possessions and run deeper and farther into the forest.”

Now, some say even a planned visit by a team of wildlife scientists might disturb the Ayoreo way of life. Does science put them at risk? And what’s the name of their homeland?

The answer is Chaco or Gran Chaco. A planned visit by a team of scientists to study biodiversity there has raised concerns that the expedition could threaten the Ayoreo people’s way of life. Anchor Lisa Mullins finds out more from Jonathan Mazower, of the London-based human rights group Survival.
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Here are a few hints. It’s a mountainous area, in a chain of peaks that stretches more than 4, 000 miles. These mountains rise above a coastal desert on one side. On the other side of the mountains is the world’s largest tropical forest.

For the Geo Quiz, we want you to identify the mountain chain and the continent where the potato was first farmed thousands of years ago.

The answer is South America, in the Andes Mountains, in an area now occupied by the nations of Peru and Bolivia. That region remains home to the greatest diversity of potatoes on earth.

And it’s a place where scientists are trying to preserve those potatoes, and to help the people who depend on them.

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Pamela Anderson is the director general of the International Potato Center in Lima, Peru. In this audio slideshow she provides a brief and colorful history of the potato in South America.

>>> Click here to start the audio slideshow

Click here to view a photo gallery of Andean potato varieties>>>

Read the Transcript
This text below is a phonetic transcript of a radio story broadcast by PRI’s THE WORLD. It has been created on deadline by a contractor for PRI. The transcript is included here to facilitate internet searches for audio content. Please report any transcribing errors to theworld@pri.org. This transcript may not be in its final form, and it may be updated. Please be aware that the authoritative record of material distributed by PRI’s THE WORLD is the program audio.

MARCO WERMAN:  For today’s Geo Quiz we wanted to know where in the world potatoes originated.  We asked for the continent and more specifically, the mountain range.  The answer is South America, the continent and the mountain range, the Andes Mountains in an area now occupied by Peru and Bolivia.  The region remains home to the greatest diversity of potatoes on earth and it’s a place where scientists are trying to preserve that diversity.  Here’s one of them.

PAMELA ANDERSON:  My name is Pamela Anderson.  I’m the Director General of the International Potato Center which is headquartered here in Lima, Peru.  In North America and Europe, most of us, when we think of potatoes, think of what we call the white improved potato.  But we estimate that there are five thousand varieties of native potatoes currently grown in farmers’ fields in the Andean chain.  And many of these are so diverse that you wouldn’t recognize them as potatoes if I showed them to you.  They come in all kinds of colors. Yellow, pink, purple, blue, orange, I mean rainbow colors.  Beautiful patterns.  You cut one of them open and it looks like a butterfly on the inside.  They come in all kinds of shapes. They look like little pineapples, eagles’ claws, snakes.  All of these potatoes have names that are [SOUNDS LIKE] Ketchua.  This potato is actually the shape of a puma’s hand and that’s what the Ketchua says, [SOUNDS LIKE] Yama Puka Makin, the hand that belongs to the puma.  So our primary mission here in the Andes is to protect this biodiversity but also to work with the populations in the highlands who continue to grow and utilize these and make sure that as they protect the conservation in the field, they also benefit from these potatoes.  So as an example, last year, Pepsi Co/Frito-Lay who does Lay’s potato chips, came up with a brand new product which was their Lay’s Andeans potatoes.  Those are potato chips made out of the native potatoes from the highlands of Peru. The sales have really shot up exponentially.  They are in all of the major supermarket chains in Lima and moving out into other parts of the country.  This is what it looks like.  You can just see how beautiful the packaging is and that, would you like to taste?  Oh, look at that.  They’re purple, they’re pink, they’re yellow.  They’re lovely.  These are the only potato chips I eat anymore, seriously.  They’re good.

WERMAN:  You can see a slideshow of the unusual potato varieties Pamela Anderson mentioned, including that uncanny puma hand.  The slideshow is at TheWorld.org.  Our interview was produced by The World’s David Barren, with assistance from The International Reporting Project.

Copyright ©2009 PRI’s THE WORLD. All rights reserved. No quotes from the materials contained herein may be used in any media without attribution to PRI’s THE WORLD. This transcript may not be reproduced, in whole or in part, without prior written permission. For further information, please email The World’s Permissions Coordinator at theworld@pri.org.

Read the Transcript
This text below is a phonetic transcript of a radio story broadcast by PRI’s THE WORLD. It has been created on deadline by a contractor for PRI. The transcript is included here to facilitate internet searches for audio content. Please report any transcribing errors to theworld@pri.org. This transcript may not be in its final form, and it may be updated. Please be aware that the authoritative record of material distributed by PRI’s THE WORLD is the program audio.

LISA MULLINS: Here’s a quick story from South America now. It starts with a Happy Birthday wish for Mauricio Baldivieso. He’s 13 years old today. Now big news you say? Well, Baldivieso is big news in Bolivia, that’s where he lives. This week, he’s thought to have become South America’s youngest-ever professional soccer player. In fact, his debut for first division team Aurora came before his birthday. So he was just 12 years old when he first played on Monday, against a team from La Paz. La Paz took a one-goal lead, then young Baldivieso came on with nine minutes left in the game. He suffered a big tackle, he broke out in tears. He had to leave the field then, but with four minutes to go, he returned to a standing ovation, and the 12 year-old ended the match with a smile. “A million thanks to everybody,” he said afterward, “I’m the happiest man in the world.” The young man has reason to thank his dad in particular, he likely got some of his talent that way. Baldivieso senior is a former international player. He also happens to be the kid’s coach.

Copyright ©2009 PRI’s THE WORLD. All rights reserved. No quotes from the materials contained herein may be used in any media without attribution to PRI’s THE WORLD. This transcript may not be reproduced, in whole or in part, without prior written permission. For further information, please email The World’s Permissions Coordinator at theworld@pri.org.