Leaving La Paz

As I prepare to leave  Bolivia at the end of the month, I have been thinking about my experiences here and the things that I like best (and least) about this country.

People here are  incredibly patriotic, something which I find really  nice. A lot of the local produce here says “proudly Bolivian” on it. People are also very proud of their culture, and they are incredibly culture rich. Each region has its own traditional dish and traditional dress. The music here is also a big thing. Sometimes it seems like they are stuck in a bit of a time warp, the same songs are always played and most music you hear is old. However they have their own rhythms and musical instruments, mostly to do with folklore, and everyone knows the songs. I went to a concert of a Bolivian band and there is one song called “viva mi patria Bolivia”  –  long live my homeland Bolivia. During the song everyone got out their handkerchiefs and waved them about, there was a group of grannies in front of me waving their handkerchiefs around though they could barely move otherwise, it was so sweet!

People here are also incredibly welcoming and generous, you meet them once and they treat you like family. For my birthday I was invited to the home of a family I know and was given a present, had a special meal made for me and I even got a birthday cake! As I left (with the remains of the cake) they kept telling me I mustn`t forget them and how good it was to meet me. It was so lovely, and I had only met this family once before.

Not everyone is quite so friendly unfortunately, some people just assume you are rich and try to rip you off whatever you do. Alongside the culture of generosity and welcoming people, there is also a side that tries to deceive you. A Bolivian friend once admitted that he knew that at the end of the day, he would deceive us, because it is part of his culture. It can be small things, an extra 50 cents for a drink, which direction something is in or whether your bags will go straight onto the bus. Or sometines it is bigger, I was being charged more rent than I should have been at my old house just `cos the woman I lived with felt like lying to me.

Maybe it is the culture of corruption, that leaks down from those with power. Or perhaps it is that people need to make such small deceptions just to get by. I guess you can`t knock them for trying, despite the manana culture here, people do work hard. As far as I can figure out, pretty much anything can be a job. For example there is the “sharpening man”, this man has a big metal wheel,which is itself on wheels. He carts his wheel around the city in search of those who need things sharpened. You can bring him scissors, knives even an eyeliner and he will push the pedal to make the wheel go round to sharpen it for you. When he`s sharpened all there is to sharpen in one area he goes off to the next.

There is also a man whose job it is to stand in the middle of the road and tell the minibuses how late they are for their rounds. I say it`s a job, he doesn`t actually get paid he lives off tips, though I doubt he gets many as he often gets abused by the bus drivers.

Some people make a living selling just one simple thing, for example they sell pens, and they stand on the street all day shouting “pens, one boliviano” or whatever. I used to think these people were ridiculous until I realised it`s `cos they cannot afford the inital investment to buy more stock and so are stuck with their one item.They can sell all sorts of things, for example there is a shoelace guy who walks around with a bundle of different coloured shoelaces. Or the cableperson, holding reels of cable. It can be very useful, one day for example I was preparing to go on a trip to the salt flats and had everything I needed except face wipes. I was in luck, I passed the face wipe woman and bought a packet.

These people must make a pittance but you do really have to give them credit for trying. Think of all those people on the dole in England, if you told them to go out on the street and sells pens all day I doubt they would do it. That`s the thing, there`s no dole here.

Before I came here, many people asked me why I wanted to come, some didn`t even know where Bolivia was. The truth is Bolivia has a lot to offer a “tourist” or “gringo” in terms of  “attractions”.  Some of the landscapes here are absolutely stunning.  I have been to the salt flats, seen volcanoes and visited the jungle all within one country.

Overall I think I will miss Bolivia for many things:  its cholitas and their bowler hats,  saltenas on the street (these are little pastrys with meat, veg and gravy inside), the markets, the brightness of La Paz (though not the coldness at night),  juice in a bag for 50 centavos, the Bolivian sweets I have an addiction to, and for the people I have met here. Viva mi patria Bolivia…though I still don`t have a handkerchief.

Peru

In case anyone´s interested, Evo won the election.

For the past two and a bit weeks I have been away from La Paz, Morales and Bolivia. I spent Christmas and New Years in Peru. I enjoyed being able to explore some more of the continent, giving me even more of a feel for the Latin life.

At first glance, Peru seems pretty much the same as Bolivia, and it a lot of ways it is very similar. However, it is much more touristy and Peruvians seem to be much more “onto it” when it comes to making money. In other words, there are many more tourist traps.

However, a country is not just its tourism, and the best bit of travelling I think, is the people you meet. You could see all the wonders of the world, but without meeting and chatting the locals, you will never really know or get a feel for the place. We met many Peruvians along the way, and there are a few incidents that for me, capture the essence of the place.

One day, upon having a few hours to spare in Arequipa before a bus trip (they are even “onto it” on the buses, people come on and try and sell you stuff, sweets, books, even medicine!) Gary and I decided to head to the main plaza to do some busking. As a busking virgin, I felt a little nervous, but we recieved such a nice reception (and a fair amount of money) that I feel it won´t be my last time.

An old man came to talk to us about where we were from and where we´d learned to play, a woman gave us a few soles (the Peruvian currency) and commented that she knew what it was like to be in a different country and not know anyone. A cute little boy came over with a sol and a smile. People seemed shocked to see gringos busking, as it normally something beggars do. I am not sure if they assumed we were poor (we were probably looking fairly tatty thanks to unwashed clothes and cold showers)  but we were definitely a bit of a novelty!

After moving spots, a group of schoolchildren gathered round and asked if I was going to sing. They wanted to see if they could understand the English I think. I don´t know if they did but they started dancing around and cheering and a small crowd gathered. One girl asked me if I could play something “from the heart”. This made me chuckle, Latinos are so romantic. I shall have to learn some soppy crowd pleasers for next time. Nevertheless, even without the romance, coins were dropped onto my grubby cardigan and 2 of the teenagers even bought us ice creams! I couldn´t actually eat the ice cream as it was nut flavoured, but was touched all the same.

After an hour or so we´d made enough for a good lunch, so off we went to feast on our earnings.

The next incident makes me giggle just to think about it, I don´t actually know if I will be able to do it justice on paper (well on screen) but I shall try. We were on a bus off to a little village called Chivay with many surrounding things to do and see. It was a big bus, a coach I suppose but there weren´t enough seats so a few people were sat in the aisles or standing up. About an hour in, the luggage guy lead 5 of these people to the back of the bus, into the toilet and locked the door.

This was strange for several reasons, firstly I´d asked the driver before we´d got on if there was a toilet and he´d said it didn´t work. Secondly, lets think about this, 5 grown people, in a bus toilet. How was this even possible?! I was imagining one on the toilet, another  hanging out the window and another crouched under the sink, but even so, what about the other two?! Were they all piled up on the toilet? Maybe one of them had fallen in, toilet seats did seem to be a rarity in Peru. I wasn´t the only one to find 5 people being herded into a toilet amusing, people all around me were laughing too.

I began to speculate that perhaps the toilet “not working” was in fact some sort of code that I just didn´t understand. Maybe, what appeared to be a toilet was actually a tardis, where they were all sat comfortably on a sofa eating popcorn and watching tv. Or maybe they were taking part in some kind of weird ritual I´d never heard of.  Five people and five flushes equal good luck? Perhaps, there was a genie in there granting them wishes. I almost wanted to go.

Ten minutes later, just as I was beginning to decorate the tardis in my head and decide on my wishes the man came back and let the people out. They emerged one by one, there were no traces of popcorn (maybe they didn´t want to make us jealous) and noone seemed as if they´d fallen down the toilet. In fact, quite the contrary, they all came out grinning from ear to ear. I think it must´ve been a genie, especially as when they came out there were enough seats!!

That´s one thing that I love about this continent, just as you get comfortable, something utterly ridiculous and illogical happens. Simple tasks that would take seconds in England last hours here where you have to complete a number of seemingly uselsess tasks to get to what you actually want to do. For example, in shops, there seem to be about twenty people doing just one person`s job. If you go to the pharmacy for example, it will be full of staff who, whatever you ask them for, they say they are busy and point you to someone else. Simply buying suncream consisted of asking 3 different people one of whom eventually got the suncream out, then to tell us that it would be cheaper if we bought two smaller tubes rather than one big one. They then went to put the other suncream away before getting out the one we actually wanted. Then, they give you a receipt of what you want to buy, you go somewhere else to pay, then back to the person who got it for you to pick it up. The entire process takes even longer by the fact that other people keep pushing in and talking over you whenever you ask for something.

Maybe this is something we´ve lost in England, perhaps we are too logical for our own good. I mean why buy suncream in 5 minutes if it can take you 15 and you get to talk to 6 people instead of one?! People here are much less impatient than those in England, probably beacause things are like this, and everyone and everything is always late. As an English person you´d probably think that it´s irritating but I actually kind of like it. People at home stress way too much. Maybe efficiency is overrated? Or maybe I´m slowly turning Latino, I´ll be singing romantic songs and performing weird rituals in toilets before I know it!