Simplicity and Longing

Last week I was invited to a 15th Birthday party of the daughter of the librarian I work with at the public library after school. 15 is an important age in the life of a young adolescant woman in Bolivia, its the age where you are let loose on the world, for the middle and upper class it is similar to a debutant. The parties are lush and extravagant, where the birthday girl usually has their girlfriends dress in elaborate dresses (all the same), food and drink are abundant as the families celebrate this coming of age.

This is for those with money. Teo and his family dont have much money, if any, so the 15 (Quince) I went too was very simple and very real. Teo is from Oruro, in the Altiplano, his family live in Villa Pagador, zona sur, the poorest part of Cochabamaba, they speak spanish as a second language, their first being aymaran, and their spanish is a mix between the two.

I spent a couple of hours with the family, eating torta (cake) and picante de pollo (spicy chicken) and listening to the stories of their lives. Everyone was fascinated with Australia and with me. Why was it that I choose to live so far away from my family, why is it that I live alone without a partner, why am I so thin, do I not eat enough?

I have written and talked about this before. The strangeness of living in a country where family is so important and, for me, living so far away from my own family and friends. I have created my own family, here, of sorts, a mix of expats and bolivians who have chosen to make Cochabamba their permanant home, but it isnt the same.

When Teo´s mother, a distingused lady who wore the traditional bowler hat, asked me how my family coped with me so far away I almost cried. When you live as an expat, you choose the selfish life (as I call it), and living in Bolivia where my life is simple, free of stress and where I have the freedom to have and do what I want, you forget the impact it has on the people you leave behind.

My friends Lyn and Jim adopted Mariana 2 years ago when I first arrived. I have seen her grow up over the years I have been here, watched her become a little girl, increase her vocabulary and go through the recognition process where she started to call me by name. I now have 3 nieces and nephews, my oldest friend has a child, and I am missing the formative years. I watch Mariana grow with jealousy and I long for my own family.

Its hard to know what my life holds for me. Bolivia has provided me with a sense of place, unlike anywhere I have ever been in my life. This sense of place and being comes at a huge cost. I wish it were Australia, I wish I could transplant all the important people in my life here, I wish that things were different.