Coca, the Bolivian Cure-All

This afternoon, I ventured over to the Museo de Coca, a hole-in-the-wall exhibit expounding the wonders of the leaf, to learn a little bit more about all the mate de coca I've been drinking. Mate de coca is a tea, drunk by all ilk of Bolivians, which does wonders for altitude sickness. According to the museum coca also increases tolerance for exertion, dilating bronchial passages, acting as an anti-coagulant, regulating insulin levels in the body and providing more nutrition than most cereals. It's a little acidic and bitter, but it creates a warm, tingly feeling in my tummy.

Mate de coca is a less intense alternative than chewing coca leaves. When you chew the leaves you place a wad of destemed leaves in your cheek and allow them to soften up. After ten to fifteen minutes, you add a catalyst like lime (the mineral), and sometimes some banana peel. Then you masticate the whole mess to a pulp. The juices anesthetize your mouth, and give you a mildly euphoric feeling.

Chewing coca has been a part of indigenous Andean culture for centuries, at least since 2500BCE. Coca was the first domesticated plant in the area. As such, chewing coca is an essential part of the indigenous identity. According to the museum approximately 90% of rural and indigenous Guatemalans chew coca. Coca is a medium to see sacred and the deceased. It's used as an offering to Pachmama, to insure fertility and ward off curses. When farming families start their homes, coca is often the first thing they plant. It's also a social lubricant, chewed after meals and at special events, much like alcohol in the states.

When the Spaniards came, they decried coca as an instrument of the devil. That was, until they realized saw how in increased hacienda and mining production. Then they encouraged and required its production, bringing large areas under cultivation and taxation. They commodified coca, to the point that it was and sometimes still is used as currency.

Coca continues to be demonized today. When chewed coca is a mild stimulant, more akin to a cup of coffee of a cigarette than cocaine. Coca is still an ingredient in Coca Cola. It's also been used successfully as an anesthetic and as a substitute for methadone. Still, coca is first ingredient in cocaine. As such, its eradication has been a central strategy in the US's War on Drugs.

I'll leave that discussion, of the economic and political effects of coca production and the War on Drugs, for another day, when I’ve visted more of the coca growing reigons. I snapped this photo of a butterfly sunning itself among drying coca leaves this weekend outside of the town of Yanacachi.