South America Like You Haven't Seen It

Once a guerrilla leader, wanted bank robber, international drug trafficker and gold-mining baron, Ronnie Brunswijk is now — believe it or not — the country’s vice president. After helping to bring resources to his historically marginalized community, the Maroons, his promise to equitably distribute the wealth of the country’s newfound oil reserves garnered the father of at least 50 children enough popularity to secure the VP position last year.

Dutch colonists brought Christianity. Enslaved plantation workers practiced Winti, which combines Jewish, Christian and Indigenous influences, and indentured workers from China, India and Java brought Islam, Buddhism and Hinduism. All of these religions are still practiced — and with virtually no religious conflict. Suriname, South America’s smallest country, truly is a model of tolerance.

Before emancipation in 1863, free Creole Surinamese women wore traditional Koto garments to carry hidden messages that only other women understood, determined by the pattern of the fabric and the folds of the headscarf. The scarves communicate messages from “let them talk” to “meet me around the corner” — a literal fashion statement.

He has sold soft drinks and loans. Now he’s selling a dream. The millionaire former head of Coca-Cola in Ecuador — who also ran a bank — is the country’s latest president, elected after two previous failed attempts in 2013 and 2017. The 65-year-old barely made the two-person runoff over Indigenous rights activist Yaku Pérez Guartambel. The free market and anti-tax maven’s win suggests a conservative tilt in Ecuador, despite Latin America’s lean to the left in recent years.

Ecuadorian native groups are increasingly flexing their political muscle. That influence showed in November 2019, when then-President Lenín Moreno restored fuel subsidies after two weeks of deadly protests over a proposed austerity package. A number of Latin American Indigenous coalitions are fighting to protect the environment from exploitation, even enlisting the pope to support their efforts to protect the Amazon.

How do you decide on a drink when the days are hot and the nights are cold? Easy. If you’re in Ecuador, you drink canelazo, a toddy with a body (of boiled cinnamon, sugar, spice and citrus juice). Which may seem like a confusing concoction … but not so confusing that you won’t quickly order another.

Yes, the country — ravaged by a long and brutal civil war — has long struggled with drug trafficking. Fabiola Piñacué is helping Colombia create a new identity using the same coca that also goes into making cocaine. She’s relying on the spiritual and medicinal qualities of the plant as the founder of the country’s first company to sell commercial coca-based products. Try her coca tea and you’ll never need energy drinks again.

A stunning street art revolution is turning the country’s capital Bogotá into a mecca of graffiti. Since tagging was decriminalized in 2011, businesses have been commissioning artists to decorate their walls, creating an entire district of elaborate murals that can be seen throughout the capital city. Now Bogotá’s tallest walls are bright with the work of international artists, its streets a throbbing museum.

Colombians don’t say no. They’re taught to deal with unpleasant situations instead of refusing them. That doesn’t mean they’ll agree to everything — just that you might receive an elaborate explanation instead of a flat-out refusal.

Off the field, the wiry, 5-foot-9 soccer midfielder is shy. On it, opposing defenders wish he was shy. Raised in capital Asunción’s largest neighborhood, the 27-year-old played on dirt pitches with little infrastructure. Yet that hasn’t stopped him from turning the global soccer spotlight on Paraguay, a nation otherwise in the shadows of giants like Brazil and Argentina. He played a star act for Atlanta United in Major League Soccer before top British club Newcastle United picked him in a record deal.

Across the Americas, the languages of former European colonizers are pushing native tongues toward extinction. Not in Paraguay. In fact, Paraguayan Guaraní is currently spoken by 7 out of 10 people in the country, including overwhelmingly by non-Indigenous people. Isolation has some advantages.

One set of folks who did penetrate Paraguay’s isolation were Nazis. Bernhard Förster, whom Hitler credited with the ideas behind Nazism, lived and died there. After World War II, many fleeing Nazis made Paraguay their home — including, according to some accounts, the infamous “Angel of Death” Josef Mengele.

What other gems should we know about in South America? Share your thoughts with us at [email protected].