Muttering incantations at a witches' market above La Paz, Faustino Tinta sets fire to a dried llama fetus and wax trinkets, an offering his client hopes will help Bolivian President Evo Morales survive a recall vote.Tinta, 53, is one of dozens of witch doctors who tend a warren of stalls in the Morales' stronghold of El Alto, making offerings that promise luck at work or in love, or to call up spirits and banish curses. Inside his stall herbs hang on the wall next to a carving of Jesus and a picture of Morales. Outside, at around 13,120 feet above sea level, snow falls on the ground. "Snow. It is a happy omen," he said, sprinkling alcohol on the palms of 23-year-old miner Javier Ramos. "Many people have come to make offerings to Pachamama for Evo."
August is the month of Pachamama, or Mother Earth, central to Andean culture. Ramos wants spirits to protect him while he works underground at a gold mine in the town of Consata, 85 miles north of La Paz, and to ensure that Morales wins Sunday's vote and pushes on with his nationalization and pro-poor reforms. "I'm making this offering so things go well at work, so that nothing happens to me inside the mine, so I make money, and so that Evo wins," he said, his smile revealing tiny gold stars set into his teeth as the smell of caramel wafted from the burning pyre. "I will vote for him. Let's hope he wins."