(Words in parentheses are mine- Galilee)

In 1967 Jean Bates had invited Sharon Swank and myself to spend the year in Bolivia. I'm sure you remember Sharon more than me as she was closer to your age and I think in her senior year. I was in 9th grade that year.  (My loss, I never met either of you.)

I arrived in Cochabamba a week after school started in Tambo. As the airlines lost my luggage, Jean had to take me shopping for some clothes and shoes before I could leave on that long bus ride to school. We took her Honda 50 to the market. I didn't realize until years later the significance of those huge piles of coca leaves!

And, as you know how Jean is, she always had some activity for you and there was no idle time.  I spent the next few days helping out at the print shop - seems like it was just across the street. I thought I remembered it was the Borden’s that lived at the print shop.  The second day we had a very nice sit down lunch. It almost seemed like a formal meal. All I remember from that lunch was the rhubarb pie! My first and, in fact last.

 (HA! When I borrowed a book to read from Jean, she made me look up all the words I didn’t know. Then I had to show the list to  her.  Then Jean would use those words when we talked to make me familiar with them.  Jean loves words and raised my own interest in them.  Jean did live across the street from the print shop for quite a long time.  After I left Bolivia she moved into the second apartment over the Print shop when it came empty.  I would imagine you ate at the WBT group house as my mom and dad always ate lunch there.

When I arrived at Tambo Mr. and Mrs. Lotz helped me settle in. Something new for me was study hall in the evening after a day of school.  It was a good idea.  But mostly I remember the distractions.   

Shortly after I arrived at Tambo there began to be talk that guerrilla leader Che Guevara was in our area leading a guerrilla band.  This created a huge commotion amongst the older boys especially. Everyone was trying to get as much information as they could and any new information spread through the school like wildfire. But the most reliable source of information seemed to come from the bus drivers , Galgo or Dyana.   During the next period of time, as the military was looking for Che Guevara, the students were instructed to stay on the school grounds. We were not even permitted to go across the road to Doña Antonia's little store.

One afternoon a couple of truckloads of soldiers came driving around and parked on the far end of the soccer field. They were in full gear and had automatic weapons. Some of the older boys who spoke Spanish were able to pick up some information from the Bolivian national soldiers in the trucks. They were told that a truck driver reported seeing a small band of guerrillas  just a few miles up the road going toward Comarapa. Did that ever raise the excitement level around the school. In retrospect, knowing where Che was captured I suspect that report was an exaggeration. I guess though, that we all felt safer with the soldiers in the vicinity because the next day two of the older boys and I were allowed to take the old Power Wagon out to fetch some firewood on a rocky creek bed a mile up the road.

A few days after that word of Che Guevara's capture and death made its way to us. Someone acquired a newspaper showing his corpse. I thought it was graphic and gruesome. It was over almost as quickly as it started. I wonder if Che Guevara realized the significance of those huge piles of coca leaves!! In 1967 life seemed more innocent. Little did we suspect of the coming drug wars, cartels and so many destroyed lives - all for those coca leaves.

J. David Beckes (aka John)  (Thank you John)


A portion of the Newspaper report at that time.

Valle Grande, Bolivia, Oct. 10--The army high command officially confirmed today that Ernesto Che Guevara, the Latin revolutionary leader, was killed in a clash between guerrillas and Bolivian troops in southeastern Bolivia last Sunday.

The armed forces commander, Gen. Alfredo Ovando Candia, said Mr. Guevara had admitted his identity before dying of his wounds. General Ovando said at a news conference that the guerrilla leader had also admitted that he failed in the seven-month guerrilla campaign he organized in Bolivia.

The identification of the body was made after fingerprinting by the Eighth Army command.

[United States officials in Washington reacted cautiously to the Bolivian reports that Mr. Guevara had been killed, but there was an increasing tendency to regard them as true. Page 18.]
 The body was flown here yesterday, lashed to the landing runners of a helicopter that brought it from the mountain scene of the clash. The army said yesterday that it had received a report that Mr. Guevara had been killed near Higueras, but it declined to make immediate positive identification at the time.

After the body, dressed in bloody clothes, arrived here, it was fingerprinted and embalmed.

[The Guevara fingerprints are on file with the Argentine federal police. As an Argentine citizen, Mr. Guevara was required to be fingerprinted to obtain a passport when he left his homeland in 1952. These official records have provided the basis for comparison with the fingerprints taken by the Bolivians from the body said to be that of Mr. Guevara.]
 The scanty beard, shoulder-length hair and shape of the head resembled the features of Mr. Guevara as shown in earlier photographs. He was 39 years old.

 For anyone interested, there is a very interesting book, written by Elizabeth Musser, called Searching for Eternity about another major war criminal captured in Bolivia around this same time.