It’s a drizzly Sunday in Cochabamba, Bolivia, and the cafés near the Simon Patiño Cultural Center are closed. We duck into Blueberry, a Bolivian knockoff of the Pinkberry franchise, where on a warmer day, affluent teenagers might be making out on the candy-colored couches, the boys occasionally turning to tease each other, while English speakers crowd the benches with gossip from home. But today, I sit in the stark-white space alone with the street artists El Dengue, Li Q, and Machy, as well as an interpreter, to discuss the local urban art movement over hot, too-sweet coffee. Immediately, we recognize the irony of our location. “Bolivia is a country for sale,” El Dengue says.
