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Bolivia's Rural Women Are Remaking Cities, Lives
Severiana Oruo, a recent arrival in El Alto, lives in one room with her four children and husband.
(By Evan Abramson For The Washington Post)
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Census figures say the ratio is almost even, which is one reason many here don't put much faith in census figures.
"It seems like if there's any kind of public gathering or meeting here -- it doesn't matter what kind -- there are always more women than men," Mitta said. "I'm not sure why, but there are."
The members of the women's group say they came together out of a simple desire to share one another's burdens. When faced with such elemental changes in their personal lives, people naturally seek comfort in the community, Vargas said.
"If you have a group of women in one place, they'll always get together and make plans," she said.
Those plans are getting more political as the women expand their connections. The day before a recent group meeting, Mitta and several other women spent the morning sitting at a roadblock outside their neighborhood in a protest against the local governor.
Although La Paz is Bolivia's seat of government, El Alto is its capital of political activism. Unrest among El Alto's residents -- more than 80 percent of whom describe themselves as indigenous -- has led to massive protests and strikes that forced the resignations of successive presidents in 2003 and 2005.
The migration of rural families to El Alto has sparked the unrest, said Mayor Fanor Nava Santiesteban. Thousands come here from the countryside each year carrying little but high expectations.
"They come directly from rural areas, and when they get here, they have a lot of needs and demands," said Santiesteban, who moved to the city 23 years ago from the mining community of Llallagua. "They arrive, get together, form groups and make their demands known."
The women have been part of that, in many cases becoming far more active in civic life than they had been in the countryside. Over the past several years, the number of women helping to lead the neighborhood federations, which serve as entryways to civic activism, has increased to about 20 percent of the total.
It might not sound like much, but Mitta and the other women have definitely noticed the change.
"It feels like we are starting to get some power," she said. "That's new."
