COCHABAMBA, Bolivia | Life in Cochabamba is about relationships. The whole of Bolivia is constructed around a variety of pegs upon which the gears of society turn, and everyone is irrevocably connected to each other, day by day.

On one such day this week, Monday, my homestay uncle Gustavo, a thin quiet man with salt-and-pepper hair, came to visit from Oruro with his 16-year-old son nicknamed Tucho, but they did not finally leave until Saturday. Silvia, his sister and my homestay mother, was happy to accommodate them all week, with plenty of food and the extra strain on the water supply, even though the plumber had to come fix a broken shower on Thursday.

It’s because this is the relationship here between the people and their relatives. Family is important here, so much that lunch becomes the centerpiece event of the day. This week, with Gustavo in town, daily lunch and dinner have become family events of ten or more people. No one is overwhelmed, but rather happy to see each other. Besides, Gustavo did not stay late on purpose, but chance kept him here an extra four days.

“The blockades should be over on Monday,” he said to his son Thursday night, while smoking an exported Parliament cigarette after dinner.

“Yeah, that’s what they say,” Tucho replied.

The blockades have ended, though, at least temporarily. On Friday afternoon the miners from Huanuni, who haven’t had work for nine months and are seeking more autonomy over their portion of Bolivia’s nationalized mining industry, suspended their week-long blockades over the only roads between the major cities of Cochabamba, La Paz, Oruro, Sucre, and Potosí.

The homestay sister of another U.S. student on my SIT program can now return from her missions trip to Potosí. The professor who was going to speak to us about the Guerra de la Agua in 2003 can now return from Oruro. Gustavo and his son can finally return to their house, school, job, and life. They frown and say that’s just how it goes sometimes in Bolivia.

It’s because this is the relationship here between the people and their government. When there are problems, people speak up, through terms of John Locke’s social contract. During times of trouble, some pray to El Cristo, the statue of Jesus that watches over the city from a mountaintop to the east, but for others, prayer is not enough. The people once burned the governor’s office when he refused to recognize the legitimacy of a referendum vote for autonomy. Thus, he resigned. Over 50 students at the local university protested last week with bricks in hand, saying that the university president was guilty of election fraud. Thus, he is seeking a compromise.

Only 1,238 protesting miners from Huanuni shut down the main highway of La Paz last week, with the cooperation of the police, who refused to comment on whether they sympathize. This week that same group of miners essentially closed off the whole country. Trade between cities has been postponed; both personal and commercial travel are impossible. Thus, the government is trying to accommodate their needs, as any democratic government should.

“El pueblo unido, jamás será vencido!” echoes the common chant used by protestors, which last week was even on the tongues of 14-year-old students in El Alto, where rather than succumb to the life of poverty and crime in their town, they regularly perform interactive theater in a small labyrinth of mines below the Casa de la Cultura, a 15-year-old building of hope constructed out of street debris and run by street children.

In the mines they take their audiences captive, literally, dressing them in Aymaran clothing and forcing them underground to work as miners, playing the role of Spanish conquistadors. The miners eventually demanded human rights, and this performance ends with a symbolic reenactment of the Bolivian people overthrowing their malicious bosses. At the close, several of the actors wipe away tears before scurrying upstairs to join a drum circle.

It’s because this is the relationship here between the people and democracy. Democracy isn’t something that happened once, but rather requires constant vigilance by the people. President Evo Morales indirectly preaches this as he works with the Asamblea Constituyente to reform the constitution toward a better equality for the indigenous people.

The coca farmers, many of whom supply the country’s inhabitants with an emblem of indigenous culture, appeal to him and the government for protection from foreign governments and faulty international economic policies. Here, the hoja de coca is not merely the key ingredient in cocaine after it is highly refined, concentrated and processed, but it is part of nature, part of the land.

As every first Friday of the month is traditionally the most favorable day for offerings to Pachamama, or la madre tierra, coca leaves are both chewed and thrown on fires all around Cochabamba, as people gather with a gallon of chicha, an alcoholic beverage made from corn, and share it via a ritual dictating that none may even sip their cup without inviting his or her fellow to the next one. It is not so much a game or an ancient tradition, but a very real way to connect to the earth and to each other, to their home and to their people.

It’s because this connection is the relationship between the people and their land, that colors every other relationship here, and connects the life of each person at their very core, and inspires them to every now and then declare, “viva mi patria Bolivia!”