Unlikely golfers at world's highest course

[Judi Lynn]

Unlikely golfers at world's highest course
24 Aug 2008, 0359 hrs IST,REUTERS

LA PAZ (BOLIVIA): When she isn't trimming the greens or fumigating bushes and trees at the world's highest golf course Marta Mamani grabs her rusty clubs and practices her swing with wealthy Bolivian golf enthusiasts.

Mamani is a Bolivian indigenous woman known as a 'cholita' who wears the traditional dress of a layered skirt, a shawl and a felt bowler hat. While 'cholitas' have made inroads into the Bolivian government and many are powerful business entrepreneurs in their communities, they must fight a stereotype as market women and maids, so it is unusual to see them hitting balls at a ritzy golf club.

"Club members come from the country's elite," says head greenskeeper Fermin Nina. Fees run as high as $8,000 to join the club plus $75 a month.

But like all employees at the Mallasilla club, at 11,000 feet above sea level with a view of snowcapped Andes mountains, Mamani and her three 'cholita' co-workers are allowed to play free of charge.

"I've been working here for 23 years, and I've been playing golf six or seven years," says Mamani, a gardener, standing next to a golf hole dubbed the "Moon Hole" amid a maze of intricate canyons, and flanked by cactus plants and eucalyptus trees.

A mother of two, Mamani carries her balls in a plastic bag and her rusty clubs bundled together with an elastic band on top of her shoulder.

When she hits the ball her two long braids fly over her straw hat and her bright skirt swirls against the backdrop of the snowy mountains.

"No one in my village plays golf, they do not know what golf is about," says Mamani. Discrimination against 'cholitas' is common in La Paz and some of them complain they are not allowed in cafes and restaurants because they are Indian, even though most people in Bolivia are of indigenous descent.

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