At twelve thousand feet above sea level, a legion of Bolivian women power an industry around the country's most valuable resource: food
At twelve thousand feet above sea level, a legion of Bolivian women power an industry around the country's most valuable resource: foodAt Manq’a in La Paz, one of 10 free culinary schools in Bolivia, students also learn entrepreneurial skills.Along the winding streets of La Paz, through a hidden alleyway and down a dim market corridor, a butcher wields a cleaver, bringing it swiftly down upon a glistening slab of scarlet beef.
At La Paz’s markets, women—many indigenous—work the butcher counters, produce stalls, and food stands.Lorenza Chuquimia, a ruddy woman in a blue beanie, sits on a pallet among her vegetables as if upon an altar. She’s been working at the market for 15 years. “I have a lot of relationships here,” she says. Her customers know her by name and seek her out each week. “Men don’t know how to sell,” she says candidly. “Here, the women are humble. Everyone is a friend.
Manq’a is a culinary-education program with 12 schools , and Mamani is one of its lead instructors. She’s teaching a five-month certificate program to low-income and underprivileged students seeking the skills to work in restaurants or the food industry.
Women of all socioeconomic backgrounds—from farmers to restaurant owners—hold the keys to this country’s food system.Remedios Ramirez—out of breath after a lunch rush—wears a newsboy hat over her dark hair and a red sweater, nearly the same color as the freshly painted cinder-block walls in her bustling restaurant, Sabrosito. After graduating from the Manq’a culinary school, Ramirez returned to her mother’s lunch stall to help invigorate the business.
Remedios Ramirez used the skills she learned at Manq'a to revitalize her mother's restaurant, which servesRamirez, who is now 30, discovered at Manq’a that she has a knack for business, which she used to brand her mother’s previously unnamed space, making it a more permanent establishment. She developed a new breakfast clientele from passengers traveling through the nearby bus station. “At school I learned how to re-evaluate Bolivian food, to have a new vision,” she says.
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