Juan
Evo Morales Aima was born the 26th of October, 1959, in
the community of Isallavi, which belongs to the "ayllu"
Sullka, one of the three ayllus of the cantón Orinoca,
province of Sud Caranas, in the department of Oruro. Isallavi
lies near Lake Poopó. (Lake Poopó is the
second biggest sweet water reserve in South America, after
Lake Titicaca, which is connected to Lake Poopó
by the Desaguadero River. Located in the Department of
Oruru at an altitude of 3686 m, it covers 1337 km².)
"My father is Dionisio Morales Choque, my mother
Maria Mamani (both deceased)."
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Oruro,
first photo of Evo
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"Our family's nationality is Aymara.
There are seven siblings, of which only three of us survive..."
"My
other siblings died when they were one or two years old. These
are the terms of life for families or children in rural communities.
More than half die and, luckily, three of the seven of us were
spared." "In Isallavi, we lived in a little adobe
house with a straw roof. It was small: no more than three by
four meters. We used it as our bedroom, kitchen, dining room
and just about everything; next to it, we had a corral for our
animals. We lived in poverty like everyone else in the commune."
Ever
since he was a child, Evo helped with the agricultural work.
When he was six, he went with his father and sister to work
during the sugar cane harvest in the north of Argentina.
"Every morning before going to work, my father did his
adulation to the Pachamama, which is Mother Earth; my mother
also offered to Mother Earth with alcohol and coca leaves
so that things would go well for us all day. It was as if
my parents were talking with the land, with nature."
Working
throughout his whole childhood, Evo devised ways to dedicate
himself to his favorite sport, soccer. "When the llamas
were grazing in the hills, I would grab my ball made of rags
and I would deke past them one by one. The goal posts were
the wild straw or yaretas and my inseparable companion, a
dog named Trébol."
At
the age of 12, Evo, his father and a herd of llamas left to
walk for one month from Oruru to the province Independencia
de Cochabamba. "It was the 21st of August, 1971, when
we were walking with our llamas to Cochabamba. On the radio,
we heard about Hugo Banzer Suarez's coup d'etat. I'll always
remember the big buses that travelled along the highway, chock-full
of people who were throwing orange and banana peals out the
window. Since then, one of my biggest ambitions was to travel
in one of those buses…"
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