Some of the changes in Achacachi were perplexing, though. A long-standing demand of the pueblos originarios that Evo Morales turned into a campaign promise and wove into the draft constitution was that the ayllus, or traditional rural communities, be allowed to settle local disputes according to their own age-old system of codes and punishments. After winning the presidency, Morales appointed a Quechua union leader, Casimira Rodríguez, as his first justice minister to supervise the change. Many Bolivians worry about having parallel justice systems in what is already a divided country, but others say ayllu justice skirts the bureaucracy and privileges conflict resolution over punishment. Quisbert, however, offered a different example of how the new system worked: "If a husband and wife fight," she explained, "if the case is handled in town, before a court, a fine will be applied. If the case is judged within the ayllu, a whip will be applied."

One had to wonder if wives came in for a crack of the whip more often than husbands, and, indeed, if Quisbert's gender was held against her in her own ayllu. I asked if her new public visibility was creating any problems with her husband. "­Sí!" she replied. "Women are always looked down on when they go out. Husbands are never pleased about it."

At that moment someone interrupted us with a message from the council president to the effect that if I was interviewing the low-ranking Quisbert, then I should interview him first. Some changes, clearly, were taking place more slowly than others.

Most of today's Indian leadership emerged in the 1980s out of indigenous social movements, and so its members are doubly hated by the conservative white elite in the tropical southeastern flatlands, where most of Bolivia's money is made—through the natural gas and oil industry, banking, agriculture, and cattle ranching. There are strong autonomist movements in these eastern provinces demanding more control of local resources, and the conflict with the new government has been escalating. For their part, the Indian and grassroots movements remain highly confrontational, and none of the structural problems keeping most of Bolivia's citizens poor and angry have been solved. One of Evo Morales's goals, even before he took power, was to reform the constitution to allow for repeated five-year terms in office. That measure has temporarily been defeated, and the question remains how long he can survive as the head of such a volatile nation—and as the former leader of a movement used to showing its displeasure with presidents by overthrowing them.