The Lord of the Winds arranged with his four children that they would all leave home at the same time.   They took with them the burden of memories, the dust of crumbled bones from the times of Bartolina Sisa and Tupac Katari.

María threw the coca leaves onto the coarse rug to proceed with the adivination ritual.

- Jikisxaña - she said while she looked at her husband who scraped together the coal in the stove.

The man looked out of the window and shivered.

- Jikisxaña , everything will come together again, the wind will bring what has been lost - said the old man.

The Plaza de las Peñas filled with ghosts from centuries past.   The village people heard the voices of time, talking.   On November 15 th , 1533, the Incan Empire had fallen under the power of Pizarro.   Again on November 15 th , but in the year 1781, the Spanish royalist soldiers would stamp out another indigenous rebellion and Tupac Katari, their great leader, would be facing a horrible execution as a warning to all those who wanted to stand against the Empire.

The captain of the Spanish squad ordered the prisoner to walk around the square so that all the villagers could see the rebel.

- You should all remember what happens to traitors of the Crown, because you will run the same fate if you decide to follow in his footsteps...

A drum roll frightened the wanacos , and on the highest of the high cliffs, the King of the Condors cried for his children.

- What do you have to say? - reproached the captain to the prisoner.

Tupan Katari looked at him in the eyes.   There was no hate or scorn in his words: "You will kill me alone, but tomorrow I will return and I will be millions".

- What you are is insolent.   For that you will begin to die with your tongue - and he ordered it to be ripped out.   Then his four limbs were dragged apart to the four points of the compass by the strength of four horses, and his head was stuck on a peak so that all the indigenous communities knew what awaited them, and what had become of their leader.

Bartolina Sisa listened from her prison to the last words of a man who had been her great love, the man that one day she had decided to follow and love, and join in his revolt.   She had accompanied him for a long time, camped with him in the mists of the altiplano, wrapping themselves with blankets made from the fur of llamas and wanacos , waiting for the great god Tunupa to wake his father, the Sun, and for the frost of the night to be melted away by the warm rays.

She cried in silence, with the tears falling inside so as not to give her captors the satisfaction of seeing her crumble.   Tupac Katari believed in what he did, it was part of his life and she owed him that.   On September 5 th of the following year, she was executed for not betraying this love, which more than their separation, was life and hope.

The Four Winds reunited in the square of this forgotten Bolivian village, and brought their voices so that they were heard by everyone.   In the highest of the high cliffs, the King of the Condors had returned to his perch.   Many years had passed, more than two hundred, which still weren't enough for the stories to be erased from memory.   They had been passed from parents to children, from grandparents to grandchildren.   They had been expressed on Indian flutes and drums, which are the servants of dreams.

The coca leaves had said that one day hope would come to save the marginalized and enslaved, those who had never been treated like human beings, the excluded and scorned, the Indians and the miners, who die in silence in the depths of the caverns.   Those beings who believe that misery is a part of the way of life.

Pacha, which means both time and space, organised her plan.   Pachamama was in agreement, so was Inti , the Sun Father, Mama Quilla , Madre Luna , and Cuichi , the rainbow Iris.   They all came and blessed what would happen there in the capital, where a simple-hearted man received the ultimate power from the Great Nation, to rule over them.

María offered the coca leaves once more and hoped that Huiracocha , the Great Father of Creation of the Nation, would guide them in their decisions; that he would keep them away from the Tomás Inca Lupe family, who betrayed and turned in Tupac Katari to the Spanish royalist soldiers back in 1781.   They didn't want to end up in the hands of their enemies, like what had happened to Tupac Katari.

And so it is that now the Great Leader of the Nation should confront the powerful to protect his people, to get rid of illiteracy, poverty and illness in his people.   The other great leaders, those who are now invested with power like the first indigenous president of Latin America, are witnesses not only of the new democratic revolution in Bolivia, but of an indubitable change that is effervescent in the whole continent.

"We want to change Bolivia, not with bullets, but with votes.   This is the democratic revolution that we are carrying out", said the new Bolivian president in one of his speeches.

Translated by Natasha Maguder