How this all got started

Primo has always been a political guy. From the beginning, he was emailing links to me. "Read this!" he would urge and I would ignore it. I don't care. I mean, I care, but I want to read the story about the kitten who is born with three legs yet triumphs or the dog who walks 2,000 miles to find the owners who moved across the country. The bride who goes to her chemo appointment and then walks down the aisle. The people who persevere despite incredible hardship. These are the stories that interest me: What drives those people?

Those stories, and what can I wear to make it look like I have an hourglass figure? That's what I like.

Sure, I care about the Big Issues, but there's not much I can do about them. I volunteer on little, specific things. I read to pre-schoolers. I put the books in order at the library. I help at the funerals at church. I do what I can to make things better in my little corner of the world. I donate money to causes I care about. I rest on my laurels of the Peace Corps. But I don't see a lot of value in spending an afternoon marching up and down the square. It's fine for other people. I understand the strategy of raising awareness, but that's not my thing.

Primo, however, is passionate about big, abstract causes. Last year, the governor of our state tried to pass some legislation that was unpopular with the Polka Dots. They rallied and there were protests at the capital. Primo went. I stayed home and watched Mad Men and Big Love. He felt guilty about leaving me for an entire day and even a few overnights - he used hotel points, so don't worry, there was not much money being used on this endeavor, but I waved goodbye with one hand and held the remote in the other. "Go!" I said. "Go!"

To have a guilt-free weekend with the TV and a bag of Fritos? Usually when he's home, I feel as if I should be doing something productive, like cleaning the house or cooking a meal or looking for a job. But when he's gone, I can revert to my lazy-ass, soap-opera watching self.

Not to mention, when Primo's gone, we don't argue about politics. I would be very happy not to argue about them when he is at home, but it's one of his favorite pastimes. We don't argue about who ran us out of toilet paper (for one thing, because that never happens with a coupon-clipping engineer in the house) or who left the toilet seat up (see previous statement) or most character flaws, although it makes him crazy that I put the dishes away before they are bone dry or use canned goods past their expiration date (I used the old tahini to make sauce for the falafel and yet Primo lives), but we have had some knock-down drag-outs about politics.

Which I hate. I really, really hate those fights. Primo hardly notices. It rolls right off him because he was raised by alcoholic wolves, except wolves are nicer. I was raised in a low-drama family. When his parents are giving him their usual alcoholic crap, he'll tell me - and it's true - that I don't understand because I come from a nice family. I do. My family is nice. There is no emotional blackmail. There are no drunken emails accusing me of being a Bad Daughter who Doesn't Care.

I had many of those days and weekends in the months to come. Primo started attending more rallies and more meetings. There was talk of a recall election. That meant circulating petitions. He volunteered. Who circulates petitions in the dead of winter?

My true believer husband. Blesshisheart.

I started to watch Big Bang Theory. That's when I discovered Primo and Sheldon are a lot alike, but that's a different story.

I thought once the petition deadline had been met, I would have my husband back. I also thought we could stop arguing over whether I was going to sign the petition. (I wasn't.) (We didn't.)

I thought we could take a dance class.

Nope. I didn't have my husband back. That's when he started volunteering for a guy who was running in the spring elections for the county government. At least that race was non-partisan. No Polka Dots, no Stripes. I spoke to D. Liked him. Agreed with some of his positions. There was nothing too extreme. I wasn't crazy about his idea to ban smoking within 25 feet of the playgrounds at the public parks. "If you don't like cigarette smoke," I said, exasperated, "then move! But honestly! It's not even indoors! It won't kill you outdoors! Can't people just lighten up? Do they have to control everything that everyone else does?"

Primo agreed with me. We do have some common ground. He agrees with me that stale cigarette smoke in a bar is just nasty as nasty can be but we don't think that it should be illegal to smoke in a bar. If you don't like cigarette smoke, don't go to a bar. Period.

He picked up another candidate. Teresa, who was running for judge. Also an allegedly non-partisan race, but she made it partisan.

We argued more about politics.

I picked up another TV show, The Big C, and told him to go work on the campaign. He emailed more links to me. Delete, delete, delete. Hand me the remote and leave me alone.

More about politics and Primo and me

You guys know that Primo and I don't share the same political views. But we love each other. Politics are not the only thing in life. Food and sex are more important. Movies. Tennis. Traveling. Lots and lots of things are far more important than politics.

Although Primo is a wee bit obsessed with politics. Me, I couldn't care less about it. Oh sure, I care about issues. But I don't care about parties and personalities. I am a Party of Me. The Gold Digger Party. I don't see why I should have to declare allegiance to one side or another. I am interested in me. That's it.

Primo, however, was raised by activists and you know how that goes. I am a descendant of small businessmen and farmers and entrepreneurs who mind their own business and live their own lives and take care of their own. Primo is a descendant of activists and big union folks. One's raising does tend to inform one's thinking.

Where am I going with this?

Well, the past year or so, Primo has become quite active politically. He has been going to rallies and events. I have no interest in rallies and events, even for my side. I have better things to do. Yes, I am interested in improving my community, but I volunteer in ways where I can see a direct impact. We all have different ideas about how to make the world better and isn't that a good thing? Wouldn't the world be a boring place if we all wanted to volunteer at the library or the historic preservation commission or the funeral committee or as pollworkers? Some of us sort books, some of us protest. Primo protests.

For convenience, I am going to call Primo's side the Polka Dots and my side the Stripes because I do not want these posts to be about the politics themselves but about what happens when people are politically involved. The politics of politics, if you will.

Doesn't that sound pretentious?

If you will.

Ha.

You know, that might not even be right. Oh well. The sociology of politics? The psychology of politics? The interpersonal dynamics of politics?

So Primo has become a Polka Dot activist. There have been Polka Dot rallies and Polka Dot parties and Polka Dot protests. He attends and I watch all of Season One of The Big C or Big Bang Theory, where I note Primo's startling resemblance to Sheldon. Win/win as far as I'm concerned. I'm more than happy to have a day to myself to watch TV. If Primo is at home working, I feel guilty for goofing off. I feel as if I should be looking for a job or cleaning the baseboards or doing something to contribute to the upkeep of the household.

This spring, Primo became even more involved. He put up campaign signs in our yard. He circulated recall petitions. He campaigned for candidates for two races, one for a county supervisor who lost and one for a judge who won. I liked the county supervisor candidate, but was put off by the judge, whom I like as a person but didn't care for her assumption that I would vote for her just because I, too, am a woman. I have never understood the thinking that only a woman can represent a woman. The law is the law, right? Does a woman apply the law differently from a man? Can I be represented in Congress only by a woman? Can only a woman understand my need for trash pickup, good streets, good schools, good defense? I guess so. I guess these issues are sex-specific.

He wanted me to be involved.

I didn't want to be involved.

But in the interests of marital harmony, I tried. I attended a campaign event with him. I took a book with me just in case. My instincts were correct. It was boring. Oh man. Is there anything more dull than a campaign event attended by people who have already decided they are going to vote for the candidate? Who then gives a speech anyhow? A speech to people who are already convinced? Why not just say, "Thanks for coming! Let's go home instead of wasting time here!"

The only thing good about that event was that it was held at a shop called Coffee Makes You Black, which I think is a hilarious name, which has a chef from Alabama, who knows how to make fried chicken and mashed potatoes. Mashed potatoes should have rivers of butter swimming on top of them. And tea should have so much sugar in it that you don't even know it's tea.

I even attended the victory party for the judge, where I was surrounded by Polka Dots, even though judicial races are supposed to be non partisan. Primo's Political Wife was there. She was the campaign manager for the judge, the one who had designed the very very partisan strategy. I am not sure if I should be bothered more by the Political Wife or by the Nighttime Wife.

The Nighttime Wife is the woman Primo hangs out with when he goes out to sing karaoke. When I first learned about her, I was very jealous. "She's so pretty!" Primo told me. "And she sings so well!"

I had to meet her. Even though I hate going out and I hate staying out late, I girded my loins and accompanied Primo to karaoke so I could meet Christina.

She's 29. She's beautiful. She sings like an angel.

And she is the sweetest, nicest thing. She is now my friend. She is not a threat.

But the Political Wife? When Primo introduced us, I felt my hackles rise. Still, I was polite. "Primo has been singing your praises," I said. "How did you get into managing campaigns?"

She told me. In great, self-serving detail. Wow. There is not one modest bone in that woman's body. Not one. She is self promoting and smug.

"Well, she is a Polka Dot," Primo told me. "We tend to be smug."

"You said she was cute. She is not cute," I said.

"She dresses cute," he said.

"She is mutton dressing as lamb," I retorted. "Women our age should not be wearing ruffles and dresses that show our bra straps. That dress was two sizes too big. Her shoes are ugly on purpose trying to pass as chic but they're just ugly."

"She knows a ton about winning a race and she's connected," he reminded me.

"Don't tell me she's cute. She's stringy and bony and she dresses like crap and she's smug."

"I love you," he said. "She is not a threat to you."

"I know that," I told him. "Sheesh. Like I would be threatened by someone like that?"

He smiled.

I had hoped that once the spring elections were over, Primo would be done and life would return to normal. I had hoped I would never have to hear Political Wife's name again. Or the names of any of the Polka Dots again. I had hoped that the yard signs would go away.

My hopes were dashed.

"I've decided to run for office," Primo said.

Monday April 16 Primo decides to run for office

Primo has decided to run for public office. The state house.

Oh boy.

You guys know that he and I are in a mixed marriage, right? He is of the Polka Dot Party and I am of the Stripe Party, as much as that side represents my views. I pick and choose a little bit from each side and a lot from the Just Legalize Everything and Leave Me Alone people.

But it's not the difference in our views that has me worried. That's not what's going to make this difficult. He's my husband. I love him. I'll support him. It's not as if he's a neo-Nazi or a Stalinist. He's just on the Other Side. Whatever. People have different opinions and I can live with that. Really. I can. I have friends all over the place. As long as people leave me alone, I don't care. As long as they leave other people alone, I don't care. Be nice to other people, don't hurt them, don't bother them about what they do in their own houses as long as they are over 18, and let's just leave it at that, shall we?

No, what I'm concerned about is the fact that this campaign is going to consume every single waking minute of Primo's life for the next six months. And probably every single waking minute of my life for the next six months.

Which means that the cat carrier will not be repaired as he promised. That the two-foot high stack of magazines in the guest room will not be sorted and discarded, although why it's necessary for us to have the 2010 issues of Car and Driver, I do not know. That I will have to drag the big plastic tube out of the garage and out to the back of the yard to put it on the downspout so my backyard neighbor doesn't get water gushing from our gutter into his garage. Which I don't mind doing, but Primo gets very picky about how these things are done - there is a real science to attaching big plastic tubes to downspouts, you know.

It means that Primo and I will not be playing tennis. Or taking walks. We won't be going to church festivals. Well, we might, but it will be to campaign, not to have fun. We won't be watching Friday Night Lights. We won't be walking to the farmers market on Saturday mornings. We won't be spending the weekends at the lake with our friends. We won't be going to concerts at the gazebo.

We're not going to have any fun.

And that's just the campaign. If he wins, he'll take a pay cut of $A LOT. Many legislators keep their day jobs once they are elected, but Primo doesn't have that kind of job. He's an engineer. He has a 70 hour a week, travel at the drop of a hat job. His employer would not be understanding or flexible.

We'll have a lot less money. Enough to survive, but not enough to re-roof the house. Or take a nice vacation. Or save for retirement Yeah, I'm superficial. That stuff bothers me.

Which means I need to get a job. Which I really, truly would not mind doing. Except nobody seems interested in hiring me.

If he wins, he has the job for only two years. Then he has to run again. If he doesn't win, then what? It would be very difficult for him to return to his profession. Things change too quickly. He's already falling behind. In two years? His knowledge will really be obsolete.

This is going to be lots of fun.

In which I run into another Chile volunteer in La Paz and get the tip of the iceberg of the story about his engagement

Once in La Paz, after a night on relatively smooth road, I cabbed to the hostel (I had decided this walking with backpack stuff was for the birds, especially in countries where cabs cost 50 cents) and fell into bed. Unfortunately, my room opened onto the courtyard lauded by the Handbook. (“Great place to meet other travelers!” it enthused. All I saw and smelled were Frenchmen returning after four showerless days in the mountains.). My room had huge windows that allowed in both sound and light. Those elements, coupled with the cold that I was  unable to escape (have you ever wakened because you are too cold to sleep?) allowed me only a few hours sleep. Frustrated, I resigned myself to being awake and showered and dressed.

            

A word about budget showers in Latin America. It is rare to find a shower that is set off from the rest of the bathroom. Usually, a shower head hangs somewhere over the toilet and the water drains out through a drain set in the bathroom floor. (This was why squeegeeing was important in Argentina.) No shower curtain protects the rest of the bathroom. (If there is a shower curtain, the stall is sure to be absolutely tiny and you end up fighting the curtain off your body, where it insists on wrapping itself and clinging with clammy intensity.) Your toilet paper and your towel usually get soaked.

            

Sometimes hot water is available. Usually, this is only in tropical countries and then only at the end of a steamy day. In the cold countries, some places might have hot water, but only during certain hours. I learned to ask the right questions about the water supply. Not only must you ask, “Do you have hot water, and, if so, when?”, you also must ask “How is your water heated?” If it is by solar power, hot showers in the morning are out. If it is by electricity, the likelihood of the power going out during your shower is high. (I also learned that an American definition of “hot” is  different from a Latin definition. They think we are sissies because we can’t bathe in cold water.)

            

Another important shower fact is that some places don’t have water at all sometimes. Ecuador was going through a drought (until I got there) and I found out the hard way that sometimes the shower just -- stops. Even when there was water, the pressure was barely enough to get the shampoo out of my hair.

I walked across the courtyard from the bathroom to my room. A tall, dark-haired man with a mustache was sitting at a table drinking coffee. He looked familiar, but without my glasses and out of context, I couldn’t place him. From inside the room, I looked out the window. Who was he? The n I remembered. He was Scott, another volunteer from Chile. I’d met him a few times and had found him to be humorless and dull.

            

I walked out toward the main door. As I passed him, I scrutinized him. Yes, it was Scott. He looked up and saw the recognition in my eyes. I was stuck. I couldn’t ignore him now without being totally rude. “Hi, Scott!” I said. “What are you doing here? I thought you were getting married.”

            

He and another volunteer, Cindy, had become engaged after a whirlwind courtship. The whole affair had been grist for the Peace Corps gossip mill for weeks. He was 42; she was 35; and they’d both been married before. (“Shouldn’t they, of all people, know not to rush into this?” we said.) He was dull; she was beautiful. He was a millionaire; she was hooked. (“I wouldn’t marry him, even if he is filthy rich!”) Peace Corps had refused to sanction the marriage and wouldn’t give Cindy an assignment in Santiago, where Scott worked. Cindy had said, “Fine. I’ll live in Santiago and commute the hour and a half every day to my office.” They’d announced they were marrying -- with or without Peace Corps approval -- in September.

            

But it was now September and Scott was in La Paz without Cindy.

            

He told me what had happened and I felt sorry for him -- until I heard the rest of the story from Cindy’s former roommate. “Cindy had this boyfriend in Hungary,” he said. “I thought when we started going together that was all over with. After all, she had come to Chile and left this other guy behind. Anyhow, we were living together and talking about getting married and she kept pushing back the date. First we were supposed to get married in August, then in September, then in December. Then I found out she was still corresponding with this guy in Hungary. And that she’d made arrangements to visit him over Christmas! Well, I realized it was all over. I confronted her and she moved out.”

            

His voice was sad. “You know, I thought we had something. At our age, you can’t expect passion and romance. Those aren’t real. They don’t last. The best you can expect is strong friendship. I thought we had that.”

            

How romantically melancholy, I thought. I still found him to be humorless and dull, but he seemed a little more human than he had before.

            

When I returned to the US, I heard the rest of the story. Apparently, Cindy had decided to move out and had informed Scott that their relationship was over. One morning, she got up and saw Scott’s open journal lying on the breakfast table. She did what any normal person would do -- she read it. Scott had written that he’d had a dream about killing Cindy -- and that it had felt really good.

            

She moved out but had left her furniture in Scott’s apartment. When she returned for it, she found it all chained together in the living room. 

In which I ask the right questions to take the bus

I tried to be more scientific about the bus I chose for this trip. Several bus companies made the journey to La Paz and I interrogated each. “Do you have heat?” I asked one clerk.

            

“Yes!” he said enthusiastically.

           

“Do you have a toilet on board?”

            

“Yes!”

           

“Do you have a VCR?”

           

“No.” He looked dejected.

           

The clerk at the next booth spoke up. “We have heat; we have toilets; we have movies!”

            

“Great!” I said. “What kind of movies do you show?”

            

“What kind do you like?” he asked coyly.

            

“Oh, no,” I said. “You tell me first. If I tell you what kind I like, you’ll say, ‘That’s what we have!’”

            

“Well, I couldn’t really say,” he said.

           

“Do you have action movies with a lot of violence?”

            

He brightened. “Yes, we do!”

           

“Great! That’s the kind of movie I hate!”

            

“Wait! No, we don’t have that kind!”           

           

“Ha!” I said. “Now you say so!” I returned to the bus without the VCR, bought my ticket, and went downstairs to wait.

            

The Potosí bus terminal had a clever method for loading luggage. Most places had men hauling the luggage up a ladder to the top of the bus, but in Potosí someone had actually planned. The bus offices were on the second floor and had patios that opened to the concourse. A company’s bus would park in the gate corresponding to the office and the workers would merely carry the luggage from the patio to the top of the bus -- no ladders necessary.

          

I’d smartened up by the time I got to La Paz: I’d called for reservations and warned the guy I’d be arriving at 5:00 a.m. I just didn’t know that I’d be arriving bathed in sweat. The other buses had been so cold that I was absolutely unprepared for the sweltering temperatures provided by El Dorado, Cia. When we first pulled out of Sucre, I was excited that the bus wasn’t freezing. But within an hour, I was pulling frantically at the window to open it a little. It was so hot inside the bus that the windows were steaming, which meant that I couldn’t see the stars.

            

I did have my chance to see them when we stopped for our 11:30 p.m. supper break at a lonely café huddling on the enormous plain. The aroma of grilled guinea pig (or llama or whatever the catch of the day was) didn’t appeal to me, so I wandered to the back in search of the bathroom. Someone figured out I wasn’t from there and asked what I sought. “The bathroom,” I replied.

           

“Behind the café,” he told me.

            

I left the din of the café, which, despite the apparent lack of electricity in the area, had electric lights and a television blaring “Guardia de la Bahía.” “Guardia de la Bahía” means “Guards of the Bay.” The first time I heard the title, I thought was a National Geographic program but then I learned it was “Baywatch.” “Baywatch” and “Beverly Hills 90210” are two of the most popular shows in Latin America. It’s hard to defend assertions that the U.S. lacks culture when these two shows are among our biggest exports.

            

I stepped into the enormous cold night and walked shivering to the back of the building, looking for the outline of an outhouse. Twenty feet from the café, I was out of range of the TV and there was no sound. Millions of stars flickered overhead. I couldn’t see an outhouse. But dappling the ground  were little dark shadows. In the darkness cast by the café crouched even larger shadows. As I watched, some of them unfolded and drifted away. It was then that I understood that the toilet facilities were wherever I wanted them to be.

In which I suspect Doris has punted on my birthday present

How tacky is it to complain about a gift?

Very, very tacky. I am being tacky here. I know it. I own it. I am ashamed, but not ashamed enought to shut up.

And this isn't even a gift for sure. This is a possibility. This is me using Occam's Razor to come to a conclusion.

The facts:

1. Doris insists on exchanging gifts, even though we have (Primo has) implored her not to. We don't  need more crap and she never heeds our desires for things like theater tickets or a renewal of our subscription to Cooks Illustrated.

2. Doris has very bad taste. Previous gifts have included the hummingbird-painted cheap Chinese stacking tables, the hand-painted vase with butterflies and purple flowers, and the cast-iron cat. None of them returnable for cash. All of them exchangeable for equally odious goods.

3. Doris pesters Primo in the weeks before my birthday by sending him link after link to items he knows - even without asking me - that I would never want in a million years. I know there are women who cherish shirts with lots of different colors and designs and sequins on them, but I am not one of those women. I know there are women who like vases hand-painted with butterflies and purple flowers ($68). I am not one of them. I know there are women who like cast-iron cats. I am not one of them.

Nor do I want to weird scarf from the National Geographic society or the funky sweater from the Metropolitan Museum gift store. I want to buy my own clothes. I no longer do third-world chic: I stopped that after the Peace Corps.

4. Primo has made gentle suggestions that what I would really like is tickets to see the Johnny Cash musical next spring or that Julia Child cookbook Doris has that she has never used and even told me I could have.

5. Doris ignores all suggestions.

6. I got a pamphlet for Heifer International in the mail today. Years and years ago, in a moment of misguided do-gooderness, I made donations in my family's name to this organization for Christmas. This was over 20 years ago. I have moved many times since then and I have come to see the annoying smugness involved in donating to charity in someone else's name AS A GIFT.

7. I have spent the past three years getting us (mostly Primo) off junk mail lists. Our junk mail is next to nothing. Then, out of the blue, this pamphlet.

8. My birthday, she approaches. I suspect that Doris made a donation in my name because she couldn't think of anything else to do that didn't involve giving me nothing (which is what I really want) or what Primo has told her I want (which is my second choice - but really, I just want to stop the madness completely).

What do you think?

In which I go to Potosi to get warm

I left Sucre after one day because I was cold. I arrived early to the bus station and bought a ticket for the first bus to Potosí, which left at noon. I checked my luggage and went downstairs to wait.

         

I was glad to have a daytime bus -- I’d have the chance to see the Bolivian countryside.

            

There are some things better left unseen. The roads (which are unpaved) go up and down the mountains and double back and forth in hairpin turns. Hewn from the sides of the mountains, they are only one lane wide and shoulderless -- just sheer, steep drop-off. There isn’t much room for error.

            

On one turn, the driver didn’t calculate correctly and the rear right wheel slipped off the edge of the road. (He might have been distracted by the screen that stretched across the windshield. It showed four buxom, bikini-clad women arching their backs and smiling invitingly.) I happened to be sitting on the right side of the bus and saw the whole thing. The wheel was spinning, trying to find purchase but doing nothing but spraying pebbles and dirt. The blood drained from my face and my skin turned cold and clammy. I gripped the armrests and noticed that my knuckles really did turn white. The man in the seat next to me noticed my panic and started to laugh. I glared at him and tried to remember the Hail Mary. There are no atheists on Bolivian roads.

            

We stopped at a dusty, middle-of-nowhere café for lunch. After inspecting the sanitary conditions -- a hand pump -- I decided I didn’t need to eat. I took out my camera and began to wander. A gaggle of dusty, pigtailed little girls approached me shyly. Their pink dresses were the only spots of color against the drab landscape. Would I give them money, they asked? I told them no. (I got tired of the begging. At least the shoeshine boys purported to offer a service. Some days I had my shoes shined two or three times.)

            

Then they wanted pens. Again, I told them no. But I did want to take their photo, so I tried to think of something I could give them in exchange. I had a lipstick that was almost empty. If I put lipstick on you, will you let me take your photo? They giggled and said yes. So I carefully drew color onto their chapped lips and then rubbed some hand lotion into their wind-dried, tanned cheeks. They tittered again when they looked at each other.

            

One of them -- she must have been eight or nine -- was toting an infant on her hip. “How many children do you have?” I asked her politely. (Once, when I said something to my mom about children who were too poor for dolls, she pointed out that they had real babies to play with.)

             

She laughed and said, “Ten!”

           

“Where do they sleep?” I asked.

           

“Oh, we all sleep together in a big bed,” she said airily as she gestured vaguely toward the adobe hut up the hill.

            

“You must stay  busy,” I said.

            

“Oh, yes!” she replied. “All day long, cooking and taking care of them.”

Potosí was warmer than Sucre, even though it was 2000 meters higher. I had reserved a room the day before. I found the hostel, dumped my luggage and set out to stretch my muscles after the tense five-hour bus ride. I found myself on a pedestrian mall, reading a movie ad. Behind me, I heard a friendly “Hola!” I didn’t turn because I knew I didn’t know anyone in this town. But I heard it again. Perhaps I did know someone here. I turned -- a bearded stranger was beaming at me and my leggings. He started to speak again and I turned away.

            

“¿Hablas portugues?” he asked. I ignored him.

             

“Speek eengleesh?” he persisted hopefully. I  stared at him blankly as he ran through his repertoire. He wasn’t getting the hint.

            

At my feet sat a shrunken old lady with a basket of bread in front of her. She spoke sharply: “Maybe she doesn’t speak to men she doesn’t know!” Still, he hovered hopefully until I  walked away in disgust. A few minutes later, I returned to talk to the old lady. “Que insolito!” she exclaimed in disgust. I agreed.

           

I’d been cautious about being out after dark, but was getting bored spending every evening in my room. Potosí was a well-lit, busy place -- enough activity on the sidewalks that I could walk safely after dark. I decided to go to a movie. It was a double feature, with Interview with a Vampire showing second. I was relieved: I’d tried to see that movie in Chile and had left after 15 minutes because the blood was making me sick.

            

I waited on the stoop of the movie house until they opened the doors. An odor of stale urine assailed my nostrils. The interior of the theater looked like the aftermath of a bomb: peeling wallpaper, entire rows of seats missing, blackened light bulbs and broken fans. A mangy dog wandered through the seats, stopping to eat to occasional bit of popcorn.

            

Two boys played on the stairway. The one at the top had a string tied around GI Joe’s ankle. He carefully untwisted the string, then threw Joe down to the boy at the bottom of the stairs. Bottom boy had a cardboard box into which GI Joe dove. Joe landed on his head, to the great delight of the boys. Bottom boy carefully untangled Joe’s bungee string from his body and gave top boy the signal to pull him up again, at which point Joe fearlessly took another dive.

            

I trod carefully over the sticky floor and found a seat. The movie started. The ticket seller had lied -- Interview with a Vampire was the first feature.  My friend Bob had raved about the movie, so I decided to try to stick it out. Forty minutes later, I knew I’d made a big mistake. Tom Cruise and Brad Pitt had already slurped their way erotically through rats, a hooker, and a couple of pick-ups. I felt the blood spinning in my head and my skin growing cold and clammy. I dragged myself out to the stairs, where I sat, clutching the stairpost. Nausea overcame me and I quickly ducked my head between my knees. No more vampire movies for me.

I toured the museum in the old mint. Potosí was (and is) an important mining center in the New World. Silver, tin, antimony, mercury and other minerals were pulled from the mountains. To this day, the Spanish phrase “Es un potosí” means “it’s a great find.” As with many other Spanish discoveries, though, things didn’t work out so well for the indigenous people. As part of the minting process, the Spaniards needed to run giant geared systems to laminate the metal. These machines were originally powered by Argentine mules that would walk in endless circles, turning the giant post that in turn rotated the gears. The Spaniards soon discovered, though, that Argentine mules didn’t do well in the Potosí altitude. They dropped dead too quickly. That wasn’t such a horrible problem, but it took too long for the replacement mules to arrive from Argentina. They changed to human labor and had the native people harness themselves and walk around the circle. Today, deep grooves are etched into the stone floor, tracing the path the mules and the men walked.

            

The museum has a wonderful art display. It was the usual South American religious art with tortured, stigmatic, bloody Christs. The guide told us, “In those days, the punishments were harsh. So to convince the native people that Jesus had suffered more than they did, the artists had to make his suffering extreme.”

            

In the paintings of the Virgin Mary, clever native artists had managed to incorporate their own religion into the paintings and gave Mary the form of the mountain, or the Pacha Mama -- the earth mother. She stood on an inverted crescent moon, which was supposed to help her ascend to heaven. Her hair was long and flowing and sprinkled with flowers. Designs in gold leaf were stamped onto the painting.

            

The guide led us through room after room of paintings, then took us to the section where the old firearms were displayed and then to a collection of all the minerals to be found in the area. By now, the tour had lasted two hours. I was getting museumed out. There is only so much art a person can absorb in one day. I gave a token glance at the guns, lingered a little longer in front of the dehydrated corpses and returned to the courtyard. The guide hurried out, chasing after the reluctant tourists, and assured us we had more displays.

            

She ushered us to room filled with ancient engines and I started to wonder what all these things had to do with each other. I looked around furtively and saw that the guide was distracted. I put my hat on and slipped out the door. Almost free. I glanced back over my shoulder and saw a couple slipping out. I wasn’t the only one who was tired. They edged away with their backs to the wall.

           

I dashed into the next courtyard. The ticket-seller saw me. “They’re going up there!” she said helpfully as she pointed up the staircase. I was not in the mood for stairs.

            

“Hey!” I said. “Isn’t that a tour bus?” She turned and I dashed out, free at last.

            

Well, it could have happened that way. What I really did was pretend I didn’t speak Spanish and just keep walking. Feigning ignorance got me out of a lot during my trip.

  

The Andean people chew coca leaves to alleviate hunger, fatigue, and altitude sickness. I decided I needed to try this custom.

            

To release the desired chemical in the coca leaf, you have to have a catalyst in your mouth at the same time. Sidewalk vendors sell the catalyst. They sit in their full skirts and white or black stovepipe hats with their baskets at their feet. A bit of the catalyst costs half a penny. I bought two pieces. Who knew? I might come to like coca. Each lump was the size of my thumb. Black and gritty, it had the feel of homemade play-dough. I picked a little piece off and stuck it in my mouth. It tasted like play-dough -- salty and bitter. I spit it out immediately and the ladies laughed.

In which Sly and Doris find something else to complain about, part 2

Now the problem is that Stephanie, who has been coming over to help - taking out the trash, scooping the cat box, cleaning the cat poop off the wall and floor near the cat box (because the one cat has a problem), does not have the right attitude.

A quick refresher: Stephanie is my sister in law. Technically, my ex-sister in law, because she and Primo's half brother divorced several years ago.

Stephanie has no legal or moral or ethical obligation whatsoever to help Sly and Doris. She is busy with her own life, her children, her job. Sly and Doris have been very mean to her and have said vicious things about her ever since I met them. She is a far, far better person than I with her continued efforts to be nice to them.

So Sly and Doris are incapacitated. They can't cook. They can't clean. They can't scoop the box. They can do very little.

Their neighbors have brought food - that they didn't like. And complained about to Primo.

Although to be honest, if someone brought me food that was dry and tasteless, I might mention it to someone I trusted not to talk to the giver. HOWEVER, I cannot imagine Sly and Doris have any tastebuds left - doesn't heavy drinking kill your sense of taste? Or is it just smoking that does that?

Primo's other half brother, Ted, has volunteered to go stay with Sly and Doris to help.

No, no, no, they have told him. It's too much trouble for you.

Stephanie, who lives ten minutes away, has been coming over to help.

As in, they are getting help they would not otherwise get. Help that they would have to pay for if they didn't get it from Stephanie. Help that they don't want to pay for. I don't know if they don't want to admit they are helpless  or what the deal is. I can imagine it would be very hard to admit that you have reached a point in your life where you can't take care of yourself. I am not looking forward to that time in my life. Primo and I won't even have kids to help us. I guess we better be really nice to our neighbors - especially the ones who are good cooks.

Stephanie has been helping them. She has been doing the - literally - crap work.

But Sly is not happy. "She doesn't seem very enthusiastic about it," he grumbled to Primo. "She acts like it's just some kind of obligation. She doesn't seem happy."

Because the result matters not at all - just the intention. And if Stephanie's intentions aren't pure, then it doesn't matter that she is cleaning the cat poop off the floor.

In which Sly and Doris of course find something else to complain about

You guys know that Sly had surgery and Doris broke her wrist, right?

And now they are at home, recuperating?

Which is difficult. I don't wish that on them. I want them to be nice people. But I don't sit around thinking, "I wish they would have major surgery and break bones! That would show them!"

I don't do that because that would be mean. And then if it really happened, I would feel really, really guilty.

But I do have to roll my eyes at the latest intelligence:

Some neighbors have brought them food.

Which is a very nice thing to do.

It's hard to cook when you are recovering from surgery and when you have a broken wrist. It's hard for them to cook even when they aren't post-op or broken.

So what did they say to Primo about the meal that one neighbor made?

"It was dry and tasteless and she used a store-bought crust for the pie."

Never a kind word shall cross their lips.

In which I discover why the Bolivians consume so much cocaine - it keeps you warm, doesn't it?

As I had been instructed, I arrived a half an hour early at the terminal. It’s a way of identifying foreigners, because the locals never arrive early. I was on the bus, ready to go, but when the bus driver pulled out, a hue and cry arose from a group of schoolteachers who had been in Cochabamba for a conference. Two of their group hadn’t arrived yet. The driver grumbled but waited for the late passengers. I should have known right then that this group was going to annoy me.

The first half hour of the trip was marred by the encyclopedia salesman who stood at the front of the bus and harangued us to improve ourselves with these paperback tomes of knowledge. He sensed he didn’t have a strong hold on his audience, so he threw caustic comments into his speech -- like, “If I’m not taking too much of your time” or “Well, if you’re not interested in being educated,” which I thought was cheeky, considering no one had asked him to stand up and annoy us. The teachers laughed and bought his books. At the end of his discourse, he had the nerve to ask for tips.

The trip went downhill from there. The attendant put on a video but couldn’t get the TV to work. The picture flashed on and off and the sound was horrible. The movie stank. It was an American made-for-TV movie about a father-and-son armed-robbery team that had been dubbed in Spanish. I wanted them to die in a bloody shoot-out, but they survived to escape with the loot. When the video was over, the radio came back on. Horrible music. Usually, I could tune out the radio and doze. Not this time. The teachers -- whom I came to hate -- began to talk loudly. I gritted my teeth and endured. After all, it was only 10:30 p.m. 

           

Suddenly, there was a sharp crack. Cold air rushed into the bus. A woman screamed. Something had shattered a window. The two passengers in the seat next to the window were covered with glass shards. The attendant, who had already prove his mechanical abilities, tried to patch the hole with the curtain. Much to his surprise, that didn’t work.

          

We stopped for supper at 11:30. The café had a restroom of sorts. I found the women’s restroom and was minding my own business when a man walked in. He looked at me and the other women and, unperturbed, walked into a stall and did what he needed to do.

           

I took a sleeping pill and prepared myself for another six hours on the narrow, twisting,  unpaved roads. (I wasn’t to find out until I went from Sucre to Potosí just how precarious Bolivian roads really are.) But I wasn’t prepared for the teachers. I’d thought they would be tired and ready to sleep, but they talked and shrieked and giggled all night. My occasional pleas of “Be quiet! People are trying to sleep!” were met with laughter. I took a second sleeping pill, but it didn’t work.

We limped into Sucre at 5:30 a.m. The horrible loud people left almost immediately and I tried to take advantage of the silence to get some sleep, but now the bus heater was turned off. (It was too early to go door-to-door seeking a hostel and the bus station wasn’t open yet so I couldn’t even call one.) It was freezing cold. At 6:30, the bus station opened and I was able to call and find a hostel.

            

By seven, I was in a bed, but by then, I was so cold that I couldn’t warm up, despite the three blankets I had piled on top of me. I gave up and tried to shower, but found the water to be icy. Bolivian showers are heated by electric heaters attached to the shower heads. Huge electrical switches are attached to the wall next to the shower. You’re supposed to wait until the water is running to turn the heater on. Sometimes there were rubber insulators on the switches, sometimes not. Always there were stray wires on the heater itself. A few places had signs posted with dire warnings: “Don’t touch the shower head! Danger of electrocution!”

            

Sometimes the heater would work immediately. Other times, I had to jiggle the switch to find exactly the right position. It wasn’t always obvious if the shower were broken or just touchy. After a couple of minutes of ice-cold water (fresh snowmelt from the Andes!), I realized this shower was broken. I had to get dressed and find another shower.

I spent the morning sightseeing. Sucre is called “The White City.” The buildings in the town center are whitewashed with red tile roofs. Doors are heavy wood studded with big iron nails. Steep, narrow streets wind up the mountains. It’s easy to imagine the Spanish conquistadores here 500 years ago, walking through town in breeches and plumed hats.

          

I sat on a bench in the plaza. To my left a band of four men played the haunting reedy native Andean music. (The first time I heard an Andean band playing “El Condor Pasa,” I exclaimed, “Hey! They’re playing a Simon and Garfunkel song!”) They wore the native clothing: the pointed hats with the long ear flaps, ponchos over loose pants and sandals. A cronish old woman approached me and stuck out her hand. At the beginning of my trip, I’d given to any beggar who had asked, but I’d realized I couldn’t afford to maintain such a policy. I shook my finger. She thrust her hand insistently into my chest. I shook my finger again. She stepped back and began to scream at me, drawing strange figures with her fingers and shaking her hands at me. It took her thirty seconds to curse me, then she walked away indignantly.

At the top of one of the hills around Sucre is an old monastery. The view from the plaza in front of it is spectacular. You can see the entire city below -- all red and white and stark. An old lady, her hair coiled in a bun on top her head and a bundle wrapped in a brightly-colored blanket slung over her shoulder, trudged up the hill.

           

I waited in the plaza for the two o’clock tour, along with four other tourists, sitting on the edge of the fountain and watching the wind blow the trash around the square. Clouds rolled in from behind the mountain and the wind picked up. The temperature dropped. It had been warm and sunny in the morning, so I had dressed lightly. Now, I was shivering.

            

I went back to the door to the monastery and knocked loudly. It was already past time for the tour to start. A young man in a brown robe opened the door. “Are you going to give the tour today?” I asked.

            

“Yes,” he answered, “but the secretary is still at lunch. She is the one who sells the tickets.” He started to close the door.

           

I stuck my foot between the door and the frame. “Could I please wait inside? It’s freezing out there!”

           

Reluctantly, he opened the door. The wind blew the outside trash into the foyer. He waved to a bench and slipped away. I heard knocking. The Japanese couple smiled gratefully when I opened the door and walked to the corner.

            

At 2:30, the secretary appeared and sold us our tickets. The man in the brown robe returned and started the tour. Three Germans -- a young woman with a baby and a woman who looked like her mother -- joined the tour. The monk led us through the cloisters and showed us a tree. “This tree,” he said, “is very old. It was here when the first monks built the monastery.” He rattled off facts about the tree and the German woman translated for her mother.

           

The monk turned and led us to another room. Again, he spoke rapidly. The German woman finally said in exasperation, “Could you please slow down!”

In which I try to go to a movie and I break another drought

I was bored. Neither Christine nor I had been able to reach Suzy yet. Cochabamba doesn’t present the casual tourist with an abundance of possibilities and there are only so many hours a day I can spend eating.

In the town center amidst the scribes with their typewriters and the signs that pleaded “No urinating,” I found a movie theater. It was showing Casper -- not my idea of great theater, but better than Judge Dredd, the other option. I bought a ticket and went inside. The movie started -- and it had been dubbed in Spanish! (Imagine!) Most movies simply had subtitles. I hadn’t thought that Casper would be considered a children’s movie. (My mind was going with boredom.) I tried to understand the Spanish, but the sound system was old and the words emerged garbled.

I walked out and asked the ticket seller if I could have my money back. She looked concerned. “I don’t know,” she said, and beckoned the ticket taker over. “What do you think?” she asked him.

“I don’t know.” They consulted for a minute, then came to the conclusion that this decision was out of the realm of their collective authority.

“We’ll have to ask the manager,” they warned me. “He’ll probably say no. All these tickets are numbered, you know.”

I told them I’d take my chances and they led me upstairs to the manager’s office. The ticket taker knocked timidly and cracked the door open. The manager beckoned him in. “She wants her money back because she’s American and the movie is in Spanish. We told her those tickets are numbered.”

The manager rolled his eyes and said patiently, “Give her the money and close the door.”

On Sunday evening, I went to the airport to wait for Suzy, who, I was to learn, is not the most organized person in the world. She’d finally sent Christine a fax saying that she’d fly into Cochabamba from La Paz on Sunday but had neglected to give us any other information, like her flight number or arrival time. It had taken me two days and three trips to two travel agencies to find out what flights she might be on. There were two arriving from La Paz that day. I’d gone to meet the 1:00 flight and she wasn’t on it, so now I had returned for the 7:00 flight.

As I waited outside the terminal, I felt electricity in the air, then a crisp, clean smell and a sudden coolness. Odd, I thought. Feels like a thunderstorm. But it hadn’t rained in five months in Cochabamba. The wind picked up and dried leaves and bits of trash spun and swirled on the blacktop. Thick clouds billowed over the mountains toward the terminal and threw off lightning bolts. Within minutes, icy cold rain and hail began to hurl themselves to the ground. The wind blew branches off the trees. A tree tore itself from the ground and threw its naked roots to the sky. The rain started and didn’t stop for two hours. All the flights were delayed.

The flight from La Paz was delayed until 9:30. And then Suzy wasn’t even on it. I left the terminal in disgust and went to wait for the bus. No bus. I asked someone how long before the bus arrived and she told me it didn’t run that late.

I approached a cab. “How much to take me to Christine’s house?”

“Ten bolivianos,” he told me.

“Ha!” I replied. “I’ll give you four.”

He countered with eight. I told him that just because I was a foreigner didn’t mean I was stupid and that I was not paying any more than five, which was what Christine had told me was the going rate. He grinned and looked suitably chagrined. When he dropped me off, he shook my hand, wrapping both his hands around mine, and kissed me on the cheek.

I gave up on Suzy and decided to leave Cochabamba and went to the bus station to buy a ticket to Sucre. Standing in line behind me were two clean-cut, fresh-faced young American men dressed in short-sleeved white shirts and ties. On their pockets were blue badges proclaiming “Hermano Jim” and “Hermano Tim.” They were a pair of those ubiquitous Mormon missionaries who overrun South America. I asked them what they thought of the Bolivian political situation. Oh, they didn’t know -- they never read newspapers or magazines. Really? They hadn’t noticed that Bolivia was in a state of martial law? Nope, they didn’t bother with that stuff. They weren’t supposed to, you know. I asked if they really believed that their church did not want them to read the news. Yes, they said. Some missionaries did, but they went by the book.

I left the bus terminal and was walking through the market when school let out for lunch. A herd of small boys ran out form the gates, yelling and skipping. I stood next to an old pickup that was parked halfway on the sidewalk and watched them. Five of them in a row stopped next to the pickup, upzipped their pants, and peed against the front wheel of the truck. I wondered where the public restroom for the girls was.

In which Primo has to tell Isabel that the alimony is over‏

Primo is all stressed because he is pretty sure that Isabel has not been keeping track of the divorce decree, even though she graduated from college with honors (with a major of dubious academic integrity, though) (at Primo's expense). The alimony ended this month. Done. Finito. No more. No more money leaving our checking account every month to go to her.

If you get divorced, get a lawyer. Don't have a mediated divorce. A lawyer will tell you that your alimony obligation is 17% of your income. Not 35%. Plus cobra.

Ouch.

After five years, we are done. 

But Isabel probably doesn't realize that.

Primo was going to tell her earlier this month, but she was on vacation in Hawaii for two weeks.

Think about that.

Anyhow, he wants - well, feels he should - to call her to advise her that she has gotten her last check. 

And he is dreading that call.

He has already had to deal with family issues. Doris is trying to find out what I want for my birthday.

What I want most is for her not to do anything for my birthday.

So what she really wants is not what I want but what she wants.

What she wants is to give me something that she likes, not what I like. Because if she wanted to give me what I like, she would not take offense when Primo tells her that no, I probably wouldn't like another vase hand-painted with purple flowers and butterflies. Or a scarf. Because I already have 20 scarves. (Everyone gives me scarves. Well, my sister and my friend Lenore.)

I told Primo to suggest that she give us a gift certificate to the theater, as there is a Johnny Cash play we want to see this spring but is a bit out of our budget.

"She won't want to do that," he said. "She doesn't understand buying experiences rather than things."

I did some research on the two scarf options she had presented.

"Then tell her to get scarf #1 because I can return it for cash. Scarf #2 they'll only let me exchange it for something else in their catalogue."

Sigh. She's going to send something that I don't want. I will have to go to the PO to send it back. Money will be wasted. 

In which I hang out in Cochabamba

Once the terminal opened, I left the bus. I still hadn’t spoken with Suzy but had decided I would just try to meet her in Cochabamba. I pulled out my Handbook and looked for a hostel. There were several within a few blocks of the bus terminal. I strapped on my backpack and began to walk.

The sun was just beginning to come up. The streets were empty except for a few vendors who were starting to set up their stands and several policemen. I stopped to ask directions and they pointed me north.

My backpack was really heavy after a night with practically no sleep. All I wanted to do was find a bed and fall into it for a few hours. I found the first hostel in the list. I rang the doorbell but no one answered. I rang again and again but to no avail. The Bolivians were not early risers like the Paraguayans.

I gave up and walked three blocks to the next place. Someone opened the little window in the door this time but told me there was no room. Come back at noon.

“Noon!” I said with dismay. That’s over five hours from now! Don’t you have a couch or something?”

He yawned and turned away. “Nope,” he said.

I kept walking. The third place I found actually had a desk clerk who was awake and who showed me a room. When he flung open the door, the bed was unmade and the contents of a backpack were strewn on the floor.

“Oh,” he said. “I guess someone is still in here. It might be available at noon.”

I reiterated my plea for at least a sofa, but my cries fell on deaf ears. He showed me to the door and I walked out, defeated, exhausted, and unshowered.

I decided the only thing left for me to do was to throw myself at Christine’s mercy. I pulled my little notebook out to find her home phone number. Aha! She had no phone at home! All I had was a work number! But I did have her home address. I stopped in a bakery and asked directions. The woman there assured me the address was not far away. You’d think by now I would have learned not to trust such reassurances, but I was tired and not thinking clearly. I bought a roll and a box of apple juice and began to walk again.

It was half an hour, two miles -- which is a long way with a backpack, and five sets of directions later that I finally stood in front of a tall iron gate at Christine’s house. I rang the doorbell. No one answered. I rang again. My patience was gone and I didn’t care if I woke people up. I wasn’t getting to sleep, was I? Finally, a boy in his pajamas opened the gate. I explained that I was a friend of Christine’s (OK-- a small lie -- she had never even met me) and he let me in. I guess the fact that I was another gringa was good enough for him.

“She lives upstairs,” he said, and pointed to the stairwell at the back of the garage.

He ducked into the front door while I walked toward the stairs. Dog droppings dotted the floor and the new sun was releasing their pungency. A sheet of plywood blocked the foot of the stairs; a gate blocked the top. Upstairs was a large landing off which were four doors, all of which had big windows. It was only 7:45 in the morning and I didn’t want to wake Christine, so I tiptoed to the first door and looked in. It was a living room. I tried the handle, but it was locked. The second door was to the kitchen; the third to the bathroom -- which was unlocked, fortunately. My keen intuition allowed me to deduce that the fourth door was to Christine’s bedroom.

I shed my bags, grabbed my toothbrush and soap, and headed into the bathroom. There was no mirror, so I pulled out my compact. No wonder there had been no room at the inn! I looked like hell. In addition to my attractive outfit of black leggings (the torn seam since repaired but the effects of a year of hand-washing against a rough board beginning to show), maroon shirt, bright red sweatshirt, jean jacket, and men’s hiking boots (in Chile, I could not find women’s shoes to fit my size-nine gringo feet), my hair was sticking up in all directions and an enormous pimple had chosen to emerge on my chin. I looked like I’d spent all night in an uncomfortable bus. Normally, I disdain the grunge look, but I right now I looked like their poster child.

I brushed my teeth, washed my face, combed my hair and did the best I could with my magic Cover Girl concealer wand. Christine still wasn’t up, so I pulled my book out of my pack and sat on the floor to wait.

At about nine, she finally emerged from her bedroom. I was worried she would be startled at the sight of a total stranger sitting in her hall, but she handled the surprise with aplomb, opening the living room for me and pulling a set of clean sheets out of the big chest in the corner. She gave me a key, pointed to the couch, and left me to my own devices. I made up the couch, stripped and sank into the cool sheets and blissful sleep.

Christine returned at lunchtime and offered to eat with me. We went to a vegetarian restaurant that had a lunch special for about $1.50. I could have stayed in Cochabamba just for the food. It was wonderful. For that small amount, I got salad and soup and entree -- and lots of each. The salad bar had beans and artichokes and tomatoes and olives. One of the soups was a Bolivian peanut soup, smooth and rich. The entrees usually included a big serving of rice. I developed the habit of eating a big cheap lunch and not eating supper. I saved money and lost weight -- what a deal!

I wanted to mail a letter I’d sealed with scotch tape. I laid it on the counter in front of the stamp seller. She looked at it and told me that she couldn’t accept a letter with tape on it.

“Why not?” I wanted to know.

“Because the recipient might think that the Bolivian Postal Service opened it,” she explained with impatience. I wanted to ask if it was customary for the Bolivian PO to do so. I had never thought of anyone opening my mail before. But I didn’t. Instead, I asked if I could just sign across the seal. Nope, that wouldn’t work.

“Fine,” I replied, and ripped the tape off. The seal held. “There.”

She pursed her lips and said, “I can’t take a letter that’s been ripped.”

I went to the phone office. If you don’t have a phone in Latin America, you go to a phone office, which will have from one to 20 phone booths. You give the number to a clerk and wait. When the call goes through, you hear a garbled announcement over the loudspeaker: “Anita, cabin nine.” You go into the booth, pick up the phone, and talk. When you’re through, you pay another clerk.
I was trying to reach a friend of mine who was supposed to be teaching at one of the American schools in Cochabamba. I did not have the phone number of the school.

I asked the clerk behind the cash register where I could find the number. “Try the Information desk,” she suggested.

I walked over to the Information desk. “I need the number for the American school,” I said.

“You need to call the international operator,” the clerk told me.

“No, this school is in Cochabamba,” I insisted.

“Oh. Then look in the phone book!” she said brightly.

“It’s not in the phone book! That’s why I’m asking you!” I said with exasperation.

She gave me a look of annoyed confusion. “Well, if it’s not in the phone book, how am I supposed to know?” she demanded.

I surrendered and returned to clerk number one. “Is there directory assistance?” I asked her.

“Sure,” she said.

“Great. Place a call for me to them.”

“Oh, you can’t call them from our phones. You need to go outside the building. There’s an old lady who sells candy and rents her phone.”

I looked at her. “Why can’t I call from here?”

“Our phones won’t call directory assistance.” She shrugged and went back to filing her nails.

I gave up and went outside. I found the little old lady and gave her ten cents to use her old rotary phone to call the Bolivian phone company’s directory assistance. The racket from the vendors and beggars gathered around the phone building made it almost impossible to hear the operator. I memorized the number, went back inside, gave the number to the clerk, waited for the call to be placed, talked to the school secretary -- and found out my friend had left Bolivia the past June.

In which I back down in the face of a bossy man - I hope that today, I would not be such a wimp

On the ride back to Santa Cruz, I was the first person on the collectivo. I jumped into the front seat. We waited for more passengers. A Bolivian man appeared. “I have to have the front seat,” he told me.

“But I was here first!” I protested.

“Yes, but I have longer legs,” he said with authority, and opened the door for me to get out. [Me now - I CANNOT believe I did that! What was wrong with me?]

Then he was even more presumptuous. He and I and a third person were the only passengers. The driver was waiting in hopes that a fourth might apear. But after waiting a few minutes, no one showed up. Front seat hog man said, “Let’s not wait. Let’s just split the third fare amongst ourselves. Instead of ten bolivianos a person, it will cost us each fifteen. Big deal!” (Yes, I noticed his math wasn’t very good.)

The other passenger said through a mouthful of popcorn, “That’s fine with me.” They both looked at me. What was I supposed to say? “No, it’s not fine with me! I’m so broke after two years in the Peace Corps and two years in grad school that five bolivianos is a lot to me!” I should have, but I chickened out. [I hope I only paid 3 B extra.]

“Fine,” I muttered. I was not going to be happy about it. I spent the entire trip fuming in the back seat and conjuring up obscure Norwiegan curses in my mind. Some day he would rue the day he’d crossed the blond lady. Just not now.

Santa Cruz was as hot and muggy as it had been when I’d left two days before. It was about four p.m. when we got back and I thought about just finding a place to stay for the night and going to Cochabamba in the morning. But then I realized I had exhausted the mulititude of pleasures Santa Cruz had to offer. I decided I’d rather not spend the next six hours sitting in a hostel room when I could be on a nice uncomfortable Bolivian bus.

I walked over to the bus terminal. The bays were on the street level and the ticket offices were a flight down along a concourse. There were about two dozen bus companies offering service to Cochabamba and points west. Ticket vendors jumped in front of me as I tried to dodge men pushing dollies piled high with luggage and stout Bolivian women with colorful blankets stuffed with what looked like chickens and televisions tied across their backs.

“TV!” the vendors shouted. Little did they know that’s the last thing I wanted on a bus.

I brushed them off and looked at the scheduled departure times, which I later realized were works of complete fiction. There were three lines leaving within the next hour and a half. I shuttled between them, comparing bus data. Was there a toilet on the bus? No from all three. TV? Yes from one. Strike it from the list. Air conditioning? Nope. The two finalists were next to each other. One clerk finally said, “I’ll cut the price!”

The other one countered, “Me too!”

I let them fight it out -- it’s nice to have men fight over you, although I would rather it have been for my beauty, charm and with than for my money. Finally, I picked the one that left earlier. The clerk asked for my backpack.

“I’ll just hold onto it and take it to the bus before we leave,” I reassured him.

“No,” he said. “We have to load the luggage soon so we can be sure to leave on time.”

I looked at him and he stared back. Maybe he was telling the truth. I handed over the pack and took the receipt he offered.

“Be at the bus at 5:15,” he said. “We leave at 5:30.” I realized later that he’d dealt with gringos before and knew just the right things to say.

I should have realized he was pulling my leg. The signs were bad. Lettering on a banner stretched across the exterior of the bus terminal proclaimed “Be on time!” As if.

I walked to the back of the terminal, where there food vendors and tables and chairs. Women picked through their children’s hair, looking for lice. I found an empty table and sat. A fat woman waddled up to me and asked what I wanted.

“Do you have any bottled water?” I asked.

“No.”

“What about diet Coke?”

“What’s that?” was her answer.

“OK,” I said. “How about a coke? Ice-cold, please.

“We have coke, but we have no ice.”

A warm coke just didn’t have the appeal it otherwise would on a hot day, but I ordered one anyhow. All I really wanted to do was sit at the table while I waited for my bus. I toyed with the coke, taking a few sips of the sticky sweet liquid. Yuck. It was enough to put me off soft drinks forever.

I made a last trip to the toilet. The ladies’ room at the bus station was barely civilized: toilets without seats (where do all those spare seats go, anyhow?), the only lighting provided by candles set in sand in plastic Coke bottles with the tops cut off and do-it-yourself plumbing where you scoop water from a large barrel and throw it in the toilet to flush it. There are times when I’m glad I’m nearsighted.

It was 5:15, time to board the bus. I pushed my way through the crowds and found my bus. A few placid women sat next to their stuffed blankets. Most of them had extra blankets in their arms. I thought nothing of it. After all, we were here in the Amazon basin, melting away. Those blankets were probably their extra luggage. Short, dark men stood beside them. The men carried nothing. I climbed up and found my seat. No one else seemed to be anxious to board. But we had only ten minutes before we were supposed to leave! Then I noticed that they were just now loading the luggage. At 5:37, the other passengers started to board. The driver showed up at 5:45. At 5:55, we pulled out of the terminal and cruised through rush-hour Santa Cruz, stopping every few blocks to pick up people who’d seen our destination sign and decided that they, too, wished to go to Cochabamba.

Despite our maddeningly slow start, the beginning of the trip was fine. My seatmate was, as usual, a man. (Women almost never sat next to me.) He was chatty and kept me distracted from my hunger, which was immense. When I’d boarded the bus at 5:00 p.m., I hadn’t been worried because standard bus practice is to stop for a snack break every hour. Even when the buses wouldn’t make long stops, there were always food vendors throwing stuff up through the windows. But this driver didn’t stop for food, only passengers. They were stuffed in the aisles and I was hungry.

We didn’t stop for supper until eight and I practically dove out my window in search of food. We were at the Bolivian version of a truck stop, which is almost as appealing as its American counterpart. There were the official restaurants and then the do-it-yourself vendors selling meat of unspecified origin but I will note that I don’t remember seeing many cats during my trip.
Contrary to what you might think, Bolivian food isn’t a gourmet cuisine. I scoured the dozens of vendors, seeking something that might be meatless and not fried. (This was my usual strategy, which explains why I ate a lot of tangerines and crackers.) All I found were stacks of sandwiches filled with unidentifiable substances, fried cakes, and more of those half-peeled oranges. I wanted real food that had been heated to a point that the germs would at least be lethargic, if not dead.

I noticed “Vegetable soup” written on the blackboard menu at the official restaurant and sat to wait for a waitress. No one came. I looked around: everyone else had food and I did not, even though I was hungrier and more deserving. Then I noticed a few foodless others giving poker chips to the food bearers. Upon interrogation, they admitted that you placed your order at the counter and were given a chip that in turn you gave to the waitress. I ambled up to the counter and ordered my soup.

I didn’t even bother verifying the non-meat status because there it was written plain as day “Vegetable soup.” I should have known better. My soup arrived and there it was, lurking in the middle of a watery broth: a big chunk of gristle with a little fat thrown in for flavor. I picked around it and ate the droopy cabbage leaf and the two carrots.

The restaurant toilet was the Bolivian fancy desert toilet. (I found out what the no-frills version was like later.) The toilet doesn’t actually flush. Such technology requires sophisticated plumbing methods -- the kind where water is piped in from an outside source. To flush this toilet, I had to fetch water from a barrel 20 yards away from the toilet and carry it back to the toilet. A lot of people skipped this step, I noticed.

I decided I didn’t care to pass an entire night with unbrushed teeth. I looked around the bathroom for a sink, but then realized I didn’t really want to brush my teeth where it smelled so bad. And when you use bottled water to wet your toothbrush, it doesn’t really matter if you have a sink or not. I wanted to get past the clusters of stolid, dark-haired women in their full satin skirts and bowler hats, but they spread out past where the light ended into the shadows. I poured a little of my precious water on my brush and squeezed some toothpaste onto it while they watched me silently. It’s hard to look cool when you’re brushing your teeth and foam is welling up around your mouth. It’s even harder to look cool when you’re trying to spit toothpaste out. I thought I saw the mothers pulling their children close to keep them from the gringa with rabies.

I finished my ablutions and went in search of the bus. It was gone. I looked around and saw my seatmate. “Where’s the bus?” I asked.

“It’s gone,” he explained patiently.

“Is it customary for Bolivian bus drivers to abandon their passengers?” I asked in panic.

“He’ll be back,” he assured me. I wasn’t so sure. After all, the guy did have my valuable backpack in his luggage hold. I sat gingerly on the only bit of cement ledge I could find in the dust and refuse and put my lovely Paraguayan leather daypack between my knees. No one better snatch it from me: it held my toilet paper. Men eyed me curiously but no one said anything to me. I wondered what I would do if the bus didn’t come back. What a miserable fate -- to be stuck somewhere without enough water to flush toilets.

After an hour, the bus returned. They’d had to change a tire that looked as if it were going bad. Prevention is not a Latin concept. It has never crossed the minds of the people who run the bus companies to inspect the buses and do any necessary maintenance before the buses leave the stations. (Leaving the station with a full tank of gas is not a priority either, I discovered.)

With relief, I climbed back up and tried to sleep. I was unsuccessful. Every half hour, we stopped to take on or discharge passengers. This is not a complicated process in normal places, but on this bus, the aisles happened to be filled with sleeping children, so the moving passengers had to step over them. In the aisle next to me was a group of three kids. To step over them was a maneuver that carried a difficulty rating of fourteen. But no one ever said anything -- just climbed all over the people sitting in the seats next to the kids to avoid disturbing sleeping children. As if it were hard for children to sleep.

We had to stop for two drug inspections. All passengers had to get off the bus while Bolivian soldiers clutching submachine guns poked every cranny and inspected all the luggage. If you are caught with the smallest amount of drugs in Bolivia, you are thrown in jail and are not released until the trial, appellate, and supreme courts have found you innocent. You stay in jail the whole time. Bail is not an option. The proceedings can take years. (This law was written under pressure from the U.S. There is a Spanish woman who has been prison in Cochabamba for drug possession for two years already. She’s been found innocent twice and is waiting for the Supreme Court to hear her case. Had she been found guilty, she would have already been deported to Spain.)

We arrived in Cochabamba at 4:30 a.m. At 4:30 a.m., the bus station is not open and the public transportation isn’t running. Unless you already have a place to stay in Cochabamba, you’re stuck. You can’t take a bus to find a hostel and you can’t sit in the station to wait until six, when the local buses start. We weren’t the only bus sitting in the parking lot waiting for the station to open. This situation is not unique to Cochabamba -- I found it in every Bolivian city. I still haven’t figured out the logic behind this strategy. I even interrogated several ticket agents, asking why the buses didn’t leave a little later in the day so they’d arrive after dawn. Or, barring that, why not open the bus station when the buses arrive? No one could give me a satisfactory answer.

The bus driver was kind enough to let me stay on the bus until the terminal opened. I huddled in the corner of the seat, trying to reduce my surface area. I was freezing and finally realized why everyone else had brought blankets with them (they weren’t just fashion accessories, apparently). Cochabamba is in the mountains, and although it has a lovely dry warm climate during the day, at night the temperature plummets.

In which I go to the mountains and discover that habanero peppers are not small bell peppers

Two hours from Santa Cruz is a village in the mountains called Samaipata. I took a collectivo there through the low tropical mountains. In our frequent stops at tollhouses, I noticed the driver got no receipts from the toll collector. I also noticed he gave the toll collector only half the posted amounts.

When we stopped, little girls rushed up to the bus to sell bags of half-peeled oranges. I saw this all over Latin America -- vendors selling oranges with half the rind gone. They would use apple-peeling machines to scrape the orange part off. No one I asked knew why -- you still have to peel the orange -- and no one knew if the peeled rind was put to any use.

My destination was an organic ranch called La Víspera, owned and run by a retired Dutch piano tuner and his wife. Claire and John had told me about it, saying it was great place to relax. We got to the center of Samaipata, inching slowly through deep mud. Apparently, Samaipata had not been suffering from the drought.

When we arrived at the collectivo stop, I asked the driver if he knew where La Víspera was. He didn’t but stopped to ask. The first man he asked didn’t know. Nor did the second.

Try asking a woman, I suggested. I was right. The next woman we saw knew. She pointed us to the north of town up the hill. I looked at my backpack and then at the four-inch deep mud that passed for a road. The driver saw my look.

“I’ll drive you up there!” he said gallantly.

I was no fool. “That would be wonderful,” I said gratefully.

The wheels spun in the mud, trying to find purchase. He backed up a little, then charged forward again. Mud sprayed from the wheels onto the sidewalk. When we got to the hill, I was afraid that the car would slip down, but we made it to the gate of La Víspera.

I stepped gingerly out into the mud while the driver jumped out and ran to the back to get me my backpack. He insisted on waiting for me to get through the gate before handing me the pack. I decided he was deserving of a nice tip.

I started to walk up the driveway, trying to step from one relatively dry spot to another. Across the lawn I saw a tall, thin white-haired man wearing shorts and a pair of knee-high rubber boots. He ambled down toward me and took my backpack.

“I’m Peter,” he said. “I know the mud better than you.” He began to chat and told me about the farm. He and his wife had moved here from Holland years ago, fed up with the first world. They had built the house and the guesthouses themselves and had terraced the side of the hill to create the gardens in which they grow herbs and vegetables and some fruits. They sell the produce and also potpourri and herbal soaps and essential oils made from their herbs.

In addition to their herb, jam, and egg business, they take guests. Each of the six guest rooms is furnished with a camp stove, dishes, hand-woven cotton sheets, thick wool blankets and old National Geographics. Guests may help themselves to any produce from the garden and pay for it when they leave. Regular guests pay sixty dollars a night to stay, but backpackers -- like me -- pay only six.

I spoke to Juana, the maid. “How do you like working for Peter?” I asked.

“He is wonderful! He pays me twenty-four bolivianos a day!”

I asked if there were any Peace Corps volunteers in Samaipata.

“Once, there were two young women here. They were nice and worked hard. They taught at the school. But late one night, someone caught them so drunk they couldn’t stand! They had to leave.” She spoke of their departure with approval, but then added, “But now, we have no good teachers.”

That evening, I grabbed a handful of cherry tomatoes from the garden and made myself a pot of orange tea. I pulled a deck chair into the middle of the flagstone patio, wrapped myself in a blanket, and drank tea and watched the stars emerge from the twilight. There were no sounds except the occasional owl and the wind in the trees. Without dust in the air like in Santa Cruz, the sky was clear and the stars hovered low. It was another one of those absolutely gorgeous perfect moments that made me feel immensely lonely and totally insignificant in the universe. I don't know if you still have that feeling when you see something like that with another person, but I’d like to try it sometime.

The next day was sunny and balmy. I walked into town, went into the one open tourist shop and promptly broke a piece of pottery I didn’t even like. After paying the clerk, I decided I’d better go to where the goods weren’t so fragile and found the only produce store in town. It had not much more than some shriveled potatoes, a few bags of dried beans, some brown bananas, and some peppers. I decided I could cook the peppers with some tomatoes from the garden and eat them with rice. I picked through the peppers, which were small and ranged in color from green to red. I thought they were small for bell peppers, but noticed that the potatoes and bananas looked puny too. Maybe it was just something in the soil here. I bought about six peppers and some rice and walked back to La Víspera.

That evening, I gathered some tomatoes. Then I cut and seeded the peppers and the tomatoes and threw them in a pot with a little bit of salt and some fresh basil. Food with tomatoes always tastes better if it simmers for a while, so I waited several minutes before tasting. In my first bite, I got a piece of pepper. It seared my lips and I dropped the spoon in shock.

I’m a slow learner. I decided I needed to verify that all the peppers were hot. The one I’d tried had been red, so I fished out a green one. Surprise! It, too, burned my tongue. Frantically, I tried to fish out all the peppers. I didn’t know what cruel hoax had been played upon me, but I knew this was my only chance to save my dinner. But it was too late. Even though I pulled out all the peppers, they’d been steeped in the tomatoes long enough for the tomatoes to draw out their heat. I had to throw everything away (although it may have served as an organic pesticide).
I thought about making some plain rice, but then realized that my lips hurt too much to eat. I sat watching the stars again, feeling sorry for myself because I was really hungry but had burning lips and was physically incapable of eating.