OREM — It’s not every day a local shaman asks you to sacrifice a petrified llama fetus before you can get to work, but, hey, it is not every day you are in Tiwanaku, 12,500 feet above sea level, along the Andean Plateau.
“We got permission from the embassy. We got permission from the town. We got permission from the university. But what we needed was the approval of the gods,” said Emily Hedrick, a professor in digital media at Utah Valley University.
“This a sacred site for (the residents) and we got going once everything was done.”
A group of six students and three faculty members participated in a fully-funded trip to Bolivia, intending to begin the preservation process of the sacred Tiwanaku site, a former spiritual and political center for the past Tiwakanu people between 110 A.D. and 700 A.D.
Historic architecture students, students of digital media and even archeology students looked for artifacts, drew renderings of the location to have a present-day understanding of the site and experienced the local population looking at the team in confusion, at first.
Getting to know the local community was a key part of the trip and also some of the most interesting experiences, students said. The shaman and the petrified llama fetus sacrifice was surprising, the group says, but so was seeing the ease with which locals walked around town in a place with an elevation higher than the summit of Mount Timpanogos.
“Here we are needing to acclimate to the elevation and everyone in town is walking around, easy,” said Kierstyn Dimas, a fourth year historic architecture student who was on the preservation team. “It was funny, interesting, really, seeing the difference in people and what they’re comfortable with.”.
The area was named a United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization site in 2000. Unfortunately, UNESCO also labeled Tiwanaku a site at danger of nonexistence, naturally and/or culturally. The local residents need help preserving the site and the UVU team was there to help them.
“I knew it’d be cool to visit Bolivia, but that’s not why I went,” said Kiersten Dimas, a fourth-year historic architecture student at UVU who was on the team. “What I really knew is that it was going to be cool to see and to feel the rocks and to do the work … help the people there. It was cool to be an active participant and make an impact.”
How many Tiwanakuan people lived on the site is unknown today, UNESCO notes. But the descendants of the Tiwanaku still live in neighboring towns — including those with an elevation of 12,000 and more feet — passing traditions on from one generation to the next.
Many locals are farmers. Some are existing by doing whatever is needed in the community. After hearing the historical sagas of their ancestors, they are all proud to have survived the conquistadors marching through the area in the 1500s, the Incan battles that caused much destruction and the weather problems that nearly destroyed the entire site, UNESCO describes.
The UVU team heard these stories, once they were welcomed by everyone in the town. At first, local residents wondered who these people were and what they were doing. But in a short amount of time, everyone was helping each other, faculty and students said.
This is significant because the UVU group has the important job of teaching the local community how to take care of the site. The trip in August-September was the first step in meeting the community, learning what they could from Bolivian university students working on the site, and collecting everything they could from the site.
Hedrick and Dimas both said the plan is for a group to return during the summer break to continue the work and prepare the handover to the local Bolivians.
In the meantime, faculty and students from UVU can think and look back at not only helping a community but experiencing their own Indiana Jones fantasy — minus bad guys chasing you do the mountain.
“My parents are always like, ‘There she goes, going to another place,'” Dimas said. “I’m amazed as a student all that we’re doing. And still I can see how I am able to make a difference. It’s fun. I just hope I can go on the next one.”
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