Bolivian Streets (La Paz)

("And hardened in the furnace fires of Bolivian streets")

We descended from kings/
Immortal lineage the indian brings/
When the blood of his body is deeper than the source of a spring/
We're rooted to the earth/
More specifically to the path/
from Tierra del Fuego down to Canada on the map/
...The winds, of change, have come/
But my people have still remained strong in the face of adversity/
I'm mixed blood, almost every color occurs in me/
The culmination of the genetic set of diversity/
Inside the Mayan university, where they taught theories of math, engineering structural city plans/
To the mound-builders of Cahokia/
Long as Andean millenia and the history of Bolivia/
To the city-states of Nasca/
Part of a free-trade pact, spanning Patagonia to Alaska/
To the Caribbean, Blackfoot and through Nebraska/
For Centuries, before anybody conceived of NAFTA/
..This land was densely populated in fact/
With more people in the Americas than Europe at that/
With greater population density than India packed/
Until the epidemics attacked on first contact/
Like in...


Chorus:

(x2)


I admit, it's easier to preach than live it/
I almost lost my life as a Christian/
Lying on my back in derision/
Hardening my heart in my condition/
You never knew it/
Because you never listen/
Hate given over the fate that people were given/
..And the faith that I wasn't living/
But I refused to remain calm/
..Thought of myself as strong/
Your mind'll play tricks on you when the devil's got your arm/
And you're alone in a world of harm/
With nothing to lean on but a knife and an ice grill like bronze/
...I thought I understood the church's past/
Till I was face forward in the reality of brutality/
Seeing indigenous people in poverty/
Because of a colony/
Consecrated by religious authority/
Now I understand the hurt/
And why the people of earth will curse the church/
As if it were dirt/

(chorus)

Walking the streets of La Paz/
Giving pause to every thought of Western progression you've ever had/
Inside societies that were ravaged hundreds of years/
You can see another side of humanity that appears/
And another side of yourself when you look in the mirror/
It's enough to make you want to repent/
When you see a grown man cover his face as he's working for rent/
To try to hide the shame of shining your shoes for tweleve cents/
But/
When that's the option you got, gotta take it/
Immigration laws, gotta break it/
Especially when your kids are barely able to sleep from hunger pains/
And you know it stays the same the longer that you remain/
..You'll become an easy target for blame/
But surviving, you gotta break the rules playing in this unfair game/
Know there's more to life than driving a car with a fancy name/
So I spit a flame to create change.