La hostia

I asked my friend Pau the other night if he could imagine living outside of Barcelona for the rest of his life. He said he would never plan it, but made the interesting observation that probably all of the foreigners that I’ve met that are now permanent Bolivian residents never intended to live here forever. They came for a small visit or a short project and something got them hooked…next thing you know 7 years have passed or 22 years have passed and they’re permanent residents. Then today I went to lunch with a work friend and his Spanish colleague, Naxto (pronounced ‘Nacho,’ gotta love these names) who has been here 5 months now. I also asked him how long he intended to work and live in Bolivia; he said “maybe a year, maybe 8, maybe forever…who knows.” Granted, he’s Spanish and the economy in his country is the worst it has ever been, meaning the job opportunities there are slim and this is a chance for him to have a better life. But it got me wondering what it takes to get hooked on Bolivia. Sometimes I have moments of happiness…moments when I think, I could live here a bit longer and I’d be fine. But I wonder if it takes something like love to hook you, or maybe the realization that you have no other better option, or maybe you have to separate yourself just a little bit from the reality of the other Bolivians around you.

It is true that foreigners that work here have a much higher standard of living than most other Bolivians. Everything is so cheap. The most expensive plate of food that I have ordered here has been under 10 USD…and those are at fancy restaurants. Normally, if I go out for lunch I spend $1.28 (but I’ve had to stop doing that since the food is so heavy and fattening!). I pay $250 a month for my two-bedroom apartment in the middle of town. Today I bought a kilo of strawberries for just over $1 and I never spend more than 30 cents a day commuting to and from work every day. Pretty amazing.

A woman digging through trash

I suppose that if you live here long enough you will eventually find people who understand you or maybe if you love your work enough, that can satisfy you, but sometimes I see or hear things that are so depressing I just can’t stand it. I can’t imagine being desensitized to it all…that’s definitely not what I want. Every time I see a drunk man passed out in the middle of a plaza at 9 am in the morning, I want to be shocked; every time I see a guy unzip his pants to piss on a dumpster in broad daylight, I want to be disgusted; and every time I see a child bathing in the water fountain in the center of town I want to be sad.  I want to notice the trash everywhere and polluted river. Or the man riding his motorcycle with his toddler in front of him, neither one wearing a helmet. Mostly, I never want to forget how much I hate the machista culture and the socially conservative these-issues-don’t-matter bullshit of this country. I don’t want to ever ignore the ignorance. But if you were going to live here, wouldn’t you have to ignore it all in order not to hate your life, your colleagues, or the city you live in?? Wouldn’t you have to separate yourself and find others who are like you so you could be socially satisfied?

 Maybe there are people that move here and dedicate their careers to improving the livelihoods of Bolivians….but after a while you have to acknowledge that you’re different and you can’t live like they do. You are privileged. People don’t come here and live like the locals…they find their ex-pat community and they rent their apartments from other foreigners (who have already made money here) and they live a better life. They hire locals and pay them smaller salaries…and while you live in the safe center of town, they live in scary neighborhoods in poorer conditions. But maybe they don’t know any better, so it doesn’t matter?

I look out my window at my pretty street and for a moment I’m satisfied with my life. Is that good? Is it bad? What will I feel when I come back? Culture shock, probably, appreciation of my own country, absolutely. God, I can’t wait to be in a car with a seatbelt, to not have to disinfect my fruit, to throw toilet paper IN the toilet, and to not be at risk of being hit by cars every time I cross the street…let alone not have to see men whip out their shit in front of me because they’re so drunk they don’t care where they pee or that I’m standing there?!

But what happens when I come back? What kind of job do I look for next? Is this as exciting as life gets? Living in another country, learning to really SPEAK a new language, trying new things every day, seeing places most people can’t imagine, investigating topics that have never been studied…isn’t this supposed to be the shit?…“la hostia, genial, lo máximo, súper, la bomba…pues, no sé”