On being English

I know I´ve been here a while for several reasons. One, which hits me in the face like a lightning bolt both morning and night is that I´ve run out of toothpaste. It isn´t one of those little tubes either, it´s a bumper one, that claims to brighten, freshen and presumably stand on it´s head and do a little dance whilst it´s at it. Going through a whole tube of toothpaste is no mean feat, it takes several months of minty fresh breath and the murder of a lot of plaque to achieve. So now I´m down to the point where I´m rolling up the tube to get the last little squirts out. After that game´s over I suppose I´ll have to give in and buy a new one. It will probably still be Colgate, that´s not a problem, but it will tell me all about it´s wonderful properties in a language that is not my first.

I think I find my English products sort of comforting, like little reminders of that lovely green island. But these days I am no longer moisturised by a raspberry Body Shop explosion, nor do I have Lushious Long Aussie hair. As each product runs out, I almost feel further away from home. And it´s not just these products, or lack of products that make me think I´ve been here a while, there are other, less obvious signs.

I no longer have to wander aimlessly till I find where I am going. I know which are the good places to eat at and which give you food poisoning (though every now and then I am caught out with somewhere new and have to reaquaint myself with the toilet for a few days). I know and understand the local transport system, the routes and their costs. I exchange pleasantries with the cholita in my local shop and even know the name of her daughter.

I´ve even started shortening ¨buenos dias/tardes/noches¨ to simply ¨buenos¨, and ¨por favor¨ to ¨por fa¨. I´m clearly getting lazy.

Despite this, I can´t escape the fact that I´m English, and still stand out like a sore thumb. I get stared at a lot here, especially if I wear a skirt above the knee. The culture here is quite reserved, more so than in the rest of Bolivia and most girls wear trousers, while cholitas wear long skirts. I´m pretty sure knees are a novelty here and perhaps that´s why I attract wolf whistles, wows and just plain stares. It´s not just the men either, it´s women, children and their grandparents.

One thing I´ve noticed about here is that people are very jealous. They don`t seem to like it when you have things they don`t and in terms of relationships, men and women seem to get very jealous.

I´m not sure if the women stare at me out of jealousy. It´s true that a lot of Latina women want a gringo man, so perhaps that´s the case when I´m with Gary or another potential-boyfriend gringo.

Another thing I´ve noticed about the women here is that they don´t have any hips. I can´t fit into most trousers here because of this, the women just seem to go straight up and down like ironing boards. I have reason to believe they may be jealous of this, a few people have commented on it, and a girl I know once asked me where I got my hips from and said she was jealous.  Also, the reason the cholitas wear so many petticoats here is to give the illusion of hips. So it´s possible that explains the stares.

I also have another feature that is rare here, and therefore perhaps stare-worthy, blue eyes. I´ve realised since travelling how different British people look to each other. An English person can be blonde, dark or light brown, red and various shades inbetween. All Bolivians have dark almost black hair and dark almost black eyes. It´s hard (or perhaps easy depending on which way you look at it)  to describe a Bolivian…she´s short, with brown eyes and hair. It could be anyone. As I have none of these features, I guess that could explain the stares.

I think being English here is perhaps a little bit what it´s like to be a celebrity in England, without the paparazzi, twittering, and the adoption of African children. It´s more unusual than being American and the Americans are in general not liked here. For example they have to pay for a VISA to enter the country whereas other nationalities do not. The word gringo which was originally an offensive term, in fact refers to the Yanks. This is because they used to wear green coats, also I´m told the ¨go¨part means¨go away¨.

Aside from the stares and my new found celebrity status, it´s still true that I´ve been here a while. I mean as I said, I´ve run out of toothpaste, what more evidence does one need?! I can also think of another way I know I´ve been here a while, if someone tells me they´ll meet me at 1pm, I know that means 1pm Bolivian time, and I turn up at 1.30, often to find they´re not there.

Basically, even though I´m settled here I cannot escape the fact that I´m English, clearly, I don´t look Bolivian and also English habits appear to run deep. I still drink Earl Grey every day thanks to some generous suppliers back home, I drink said tea with milk, something which is unheard of here, and I have marmite sandwiches with my tea. I print off crosswords from the Guardian website and do them whilst savouring my English treats. I am still sarcastic as ever, another thing they don´t get here. Perhaps one thing that defines me most of all as English is my feelings, as much as I like it, I still find it a little odd that I am expected to kiss strangers on the cheek when I meet them. Sometimes it’s just not pleasant.

The Market

 

My dad says that in England (and when he says England he means Trowbridge) the dump is where you can find all walks of human life. In Bolivia,  the market is the equivalent. There are a few minor differences, people sell their stuff instead of dumping it, and you can buy anything you want there. Night or day, rain or shine, the market is a bustling hubub of activity.

To the untrained eye it may seem a disorganised mess, but once you look carefully you can see that it is cleverly organised. Unlike back home, where clothes shops are next to phone shops beside pubs, the market is divided into neat, though sprawling sections.

The fruit and veg section is a rainbow of brightly coloured items, all stacked up beautifully so you often wonder how the cholitas escape from their stalls at night. I imagine they live there, curled up between the onions and the carrots. Everything in this section is weighed by old fashioned scales that hang from the tarpaulin roof.

 

There are also juice stalls where you can buy the freshly made juice of anything you like, mixed with either water or milk. Don’t forget to ask for the yappa, the extra bit. Say the word and you don´t just get one glass of juice, you get one and a half, or maybe even two. The yappa is one of my favourite things about Bolivia, at the fruit and veg stall it could be an extra tomato or two, even an orange on a good day.

The electrical goods sections is a sea of very probably stolen goods (wholesale if you´re feeling polite). It is of course organised into sub sections. You can buy anything you like here, there’s only one problem. It´s all very well getting a receipt with a ¨guarantee¨ but you can bet your bottom dollar that if you have a problem with your goods (a fairly likely scenario) you will not be covered by said guarantee. You are also often hard pressed to find the person you bought it from in the maze, they are often conveniently ¨travelling¨ or have mysteriously vanished when you want to complain.

It´s also possible to buy hundreds of knockoff dvds and cds, though it’s advisable to try before you buy. I made the mistake of not doing this, imagine my horror to discover Saw 3 when I was sold Narnia.

The furniture in said section is piled up in stalls and usually beautifully handmade. You just have to wait until the market is closed so you can actually get the item out. There are also shops that sell nothing but doors, or windows. I´m told there´s a man that sells doorhandles, but he appears to be the most elusive man in El Alto. He too is probably constantly engaged in a wild goose chase with the guy who sold him the wrong type of screw.

There´s also a plumbing section where you can buy yourself various parts, mirrors, or even a new toilet if you so desire. Most people here are handymen, and I doubt would even consider paying someone else to install anything for them. And why bother, when you can buy any part you need for 10Bs. It´s the same with car parts or even cars, there´s  a section for buying tyres, car seats, taxi signs and fiddly engine parts that I don´t understand.

The market is vast, yet squashed together and it´s easy to get lost. Once you enter one section it can be hard to navigate your way out as it all starts to look the same. You might just find yourself wandering the children’s section for several hours when you are childless and can safely say you know no one who would appreciate a knock-off-Barbie.

The clothes section has piles and piles of clothes sent over from the States, sold for 5Bs each. If you fancy it, you can try your hand at a lucky dip and buy a whole packet. Rumour has it that an American once found a t-shirt from his college in the States in the 2B pile.

The sewing section, always saved till last, is my favourite section of all. Different coloured and shaped ribbons hang from the ceiling. If you happen to be taller than the average Bolivian, which incidentally I am, your head is brushed by them as you enter and you can look up in wonder at the crafty heaven dangling above your head.

There are walls full of buttons, threads and wool, all glittering and shimmering softly, whispering to be bought and grinning slyly with their endless possibilities. I´ve so far made myself a duvet cover, once I´d finished I showed my Bolivian housemate who could not comprehend why I would want such a thing. I´ve also sewed pink ribbons to my ballet shoes, a patch onto my housemate’s jeans, made a friendship bracelet or two and am currently knitting a scarf. It is not unusual to spot a cholita behind her stall knitting a blanket, or crocheting something.

The first time I went to the market I was warned as we went through a large crowd to watch my things. The warner then subsequently got robbed himself, well almost, a guy tried to distract him and then grab the stuff in his pocket, but all he got was a plastic bag.

Warning in El Alto

In El Alto, where the biggest market is twice a week if you rob, they hang you- the people are so disillusioned with the easily bribed police that they´ve taken the law into their own hands. But if you´re a gringo who gets robbed, I’m pretty sure everyone will be conveniently looking the other way.

It´s interesting how local rules apply when it suits. You must speak Spanish, eat and live as Bolivians do, and follow their rules, or non rules. You are not covered under their guarantees, although they charged you to have one when for Bolivians it is free. They can change their mind on prices if they like, but if you change yours you are insulted. In general, if you get robbed, they don´t care. In fact, it´s possible that they´ll be the ones buying/selling the camera they stole from you in the electrical section the following week. Oh well, at least you´ve got a chance of beating them to it and buying it back yourself, and you can pick up some ribbon and a glass of freshly-squeezed juice on the way home.

Not my day

On Saturday night I went to a rave in the mountains.  I got wasted, I danced all night and I walked home at 5am with aching feet.

That was a lie. That´s what people are supposed to do at raves, but not me.

I couldn´t drink, ´cos I´m still on antibiotics, the music was lame, and I ended up going home in a taxi on my own with no company but a bandaged foot and a broken camera.

I should´ve known the evening was doomed. Let me describe my day and I think you´ll begin to understand.

That day I was wearing ballet shoes, which have zero grip and are utterly impractical, but do look very cute, plus I´d sewed on pink ribbons to make them even more so. I was carrying my cup of tea down the stairs in the morning when I slipped, and ended up falling down about 5 steps, bashing one hip against the bannister and landing awkwardly on the other. I also spilt my tea all over myself and the stairs. There was no one at home, no one to hear me fall. I therefore had no choice but to pick myself up and hobble down the rest of the stairs. That was injury no 1, which resulted in several black bruises. And I had to make a new cup of tea.

Later on that day, I got a call from my boyfriend saying he was in town and did I want to meet him to go to the jaccuzi together.

I gathered my things and got the first trufi (shared taxi) I could into town. I arrived at the arranged meeting place to find no boyfriend in sight; all that happened was that I got wolf whistled at and hassled by various people trying to sell me stuff and shine my shoes. Eventually, Gary arrived and we made our way to the hotel.

We paid our 40Bs each, having just enough the right amount and not a penny to spare between us. I wasn´t sure how we were gonna get home but decided to think about that later. We headed to the 4th floor and found a beautiful pool and jaccuzi in a glass room, heated by the sun and with a stunning view of La Paz. There was also a sauna, hot bath and some luxurious changing rooms. We even got our own soft white towels.

It was heaven. I hadn´t done anything so posh for a long time, and it cost the grand total of 4 quid! Excellent! Unfortunately, I made two mistakes whilst at the spa. One, I looked at myself in a full length mirror for the first time in two months, in a bikini. Two, I got in the jacuzzi. Firstly, I had put on weight. How the hell I had managed that? Everyone who comes to La Paz sheds pounds like snakes shed skin and I´d originally lost weight when I got here. How had I managed to put that weight on plus more?!

I thought about it, I guess it could be the fact that I´d barely walked anywhere in the past month ´cos I´d been too ill and tired. Or perhaps it´s was all that ice cream I ate (we live next door to a factory what´s a girl to do?!) or maybe it´s all those sweets and crisps I’d been scoffing in my breaks. Or all that white chocolate, or the recent obsession with mashed potato. Damnit. I was lucky I wasn´t a whale. I was gonna have to  do that dreaded thing that fat people do….go on a diet. Eek.

I went to meet Gary in the pool and announced this fact to him. I moaned for a while till he got sick of me and declared that I was ¨not fat¨(how sweet of him, he won some points here) ¨just podgy¨(what a bastard, he´d lost them all).  I was horrified, it was one thing for me to think I´d put on weight let alone have someone declare me to be podgy. He said it was ¨cute¨. I almost hit him, in fact I think I did hit him.

I spent the next hour looking at other women wondering if I was fatter than them. Oh God. I was turning into one of ¨those women¨, obsessive and dull. I tried to forget about it and we switched to the jaccuzi. My second mistake. After a relaxing 15 minutes or so I decided I wanted to sit on the bottom of it. As you probably know, most holes in jaccuzis blow out water, but this one appeared to be sucking it in. It proved this by suddenly sucking in both the back of my bikini bottoms and the skin above them. I yelped and managed to free myself, I now had a big red mark, on the same side that I´d bashed earlier. Excellent. I´d actually managed to injure myself in a place specifically designed for relaxation.

Later on, some friends came round as there were plans to go to a rave together. We had coffee (Irish for them, normal for me) before we prepared to leave. I told them I was angry at Gary for calling me fat (he denied using the “F” word). We were just about to leave so I changed into my favourite red dress and went into my housemate´s (a Bolivian tupperware lady) room to look in her mirror. She asked me why I was wearing my leggings so low and said they were cutting me in half. She was right so I pulled them up. She then commented that I´d got fatter. I thought my now paranoid head had mistranslated and said..¨¿que?¨ she repeated what she´d said and I hadn´t misheard or translated. I walked out without saying a word.

Needless to say I was not in the best mood when we left, I told Lourdes that I was angry at her and she said ¨pero es la verdad¨ (but it´s the truth). I told her she didn´t have to say so and she laughed at me. Bitch. We got a taxi there and I got in the front seat while the other 4 sat in the back, Martin commented that the fat girl was in the front. He was joking. I was not amused. I knew I wasn´t really fat, but if that was the case then why was everyone saying I was?!

We got to the rave and surprise surprise, the good old disorganised Bolivians had no light and no system. We had to wait in the queue for ages for the ticket office to even open.

It was in a football stadium, and there were 3 poorly erected tents and various other stalls, the music was alright, and it was not unlike any other rave in any other country. I thought back to the last one I´d been to in Serbia, where my friend had broken her leg. Well at least that isn´t gonna happen I thought. I wasn´t completely wrong.

I was taking some pictures of us doing stupid dance moves when my camera made a funny popping sound and ceased to work. I couldn´t revive it even with duracell batteries, oh dear.

It was quite  a young crowd and I felt like a bit of a grandma as I found myself surrounded by giggling teenage girls. We danced for a while, then went to investigate the chewing gum lady, a girl who stood in a green glowing booth which smelled of chewing gum and gave you a random spiel about the gum before giving you a free sample. It was weird. They didn´t have that in Serbia.

We went to get drinks and I was forced to have a beer as it was cheaper than the other option, red bull. We then went on the bouncy castle, which had  a climbing wall up the side of it and a rope to help you up. I couldn´t get up to the top of the wall, and slid backwards down the slidey bit of the castle. I spilt my beer everywhere and was soaking wet with my own drink for the second time that day. I gave up on being adventurous and sat back against the wall of the castle to watch everyone else climbing up. A girl was infront of me trying to get up, she fell, onto me. Her foot dug into mine leaving a mark and I felt a familiar feeling of pain. I´d done it again. I´d torn a ligament in my right foot 4 times previously and of course, it was my right foot she had fallen on.

The world started to spin and I couldn´t get up or out as there were too many people in the way. Eventually I launched myself through a gap in the wall and landed on the grass, trying to blink back tears. I was helped up by my friends and hobbled my way to the medical  tent, though I knew there was nothing they could do except give me some deep heat. Deep heat is good though, so off I went.I went in and could see in the light that my foot was swollen and marked. I wished that I had been in England, where you have to take off your shoes before you get on a bouncy castle and there´s someone next to it with a whistle. There of course, were no whistles and no line of shoes by the side of castle, there hadn´t even been anyone watching.

Once inside the tent, I got an anti-inflammatory pill, some deep heat and a bandage. I hobbled out and assessed the situation, I had to go home. I assumed that Gary would come home with me but he wanted to stay and didn´t seem to get that a rave when you can barely walk, let alone dance is not so fun. He got me a taxi and gave me the money and I went home alone, dejected. I was mad at him and locked my door so he couldn´t get in.

The next day, luckily, things didn´t seem quite as hopeless as the day before. The jaccuzi mark had gone down, though the stair fall had left a big black bruise. My foot hurt, and was still swollen, but I knew I hadn´t torn anything as the pain was not as bad as it has been previously.  I did ache a bit in general, but I think that was just from swimming, which I hadn´t done in ages. Gary felt bad for not coming home with me, so shouted me lunch at a yummy mexican restaurant (I didn´t eat it all, and I didn´t have pudding, diets going well so far!). Then we went to my first football match, Bolivia vs. Brazil, and Bolivia won! So all in all Sunday was a good day. It was a bit like the day after a hangover when you´re just happy to wake up feeling normal, plus there was the whole seeing Brazil play, and get beaten, that part was pretty fun. I don´t quite know how I managed to be so incredibly clumsy in one day though, lets hope that´s all the clumsiness gone out of me for the year, or at least for the next week or so until I´ve recovered from the injuries of that fated Saturday.