Selling wafers to Bolivians on the street
The next afternoon while wandering around one of the squares, I fell into some entertainment. I saw a large crowd gathered in a circle and went to check out what was going on. In the middle of the circle were two men (one who was putting on a dress), and a younger boy, about 18. Must be some sort of comedy act, I thought to myself. I stood and watched for all of about 2 minutes when the man in the dress said hello to me. Hola, I replied back. “Where are you from?” Chicago. “Ah, Americana.” Sí, sí, I said outloud, thinking to myself, please stop talking to me and just continue on with your act. Everyone was looking at me now. An old man next to me started to ask me questions while the man in the dress continued. The man in the dress told me to step forward (presumably so I could see the act better). I stepped forward two or three steps. More, he said, and this continued on. Soon enough, I was in the middle of the circle, part of the act.
He assured me he was not gay (in lieu of wearing the dress) and proceeded to put on some heels, flopping around in them. “How do women wear these things?” he asked. I don’t know, I said, looking down…I wear boots. And I got a little laugh from the crowd. I did not want to be there; I absolutely wanted to kill this man for bringing me in to the crowd. And I so deperately wanted to look out into the crowd to someone I knew with that look of “Oh my god, can you believe that I’m in the middle of this circle?”, but there was no one to look at. There weren’t even any other gringos there to look at. The best I could get was the 18-year old boy across the circle from me.
Now the two comics start explaining skits to us. Me and the kid meet in the park. I’m the mistress…the man in the dress is the wife and finds us in the park and starts freaking out. I’m supposed to argue with him, pull his hair, and eventually pull the dress over his head. We start…we get to the part where I start telling her off (mind, again, this is all in Spanish). Well, my telling-a-person-off vocabulary is not so great, and I call him a puta, which is, more or less, bitch. The whole thing stops. The man in the dress looks shocked. “She called me puta!” The whole place is cracking up, including me, but I’m totally embarrassed, worried that I majorly offended all the people in the crowd, including their kids.
We continued along, and we got to the end, where I was supposed to lift up his dress over his head. Did he really say I should lift his dress above his head? I asked myself. God, I hope so. I did it and it was funny, and, well, I guess he did ask me to do that.
Next is the part where they ask for money, but instead of directly asking for money, they were selling wafer cookies, and they sent me out to do it for them! Each package was 1 Boliviano (about 12 cents), but, man, how weird I felt taking money from these Bolivians! Normally they’re asking me for money, and now I’m taking it from them. “Come on, folks! This girl came all the way from Chicago to sell wafer cookies!” the man in the dress announced. It was pretty hilarious. At one point we split into teams and they implemented a rule that after a team sells 2 wafers, the other team gets whipped. I ran from the circle, screaming No! They told me I was exempt from the whippings, and my partner, the man in the dress would take them all for our team.
After a while I was given an honorary seat on the edge of the circle, holding their money collected from the wafers. Apparently these guys were from Peru and traveled with this act. After a while my attention drifted away and next thing you know I saw the man in the dress (who was dressed in more traditional man-clothes now) waving at me, so I waved back. Then he surveyed the crowd, asking if they wanted Ella (me), or Otra (someone else). The crowd responded with an astounding Ella! and I was back in the circle to do another skit.
This time I was the jealous wife and the man who used to be in the skirt shows up on my doorstep one day with his new girlfriend and I’m supposed to tell him off again. He rings the doorbell and I answer the door. “Aló?” I say. He bursts out in laughter. “Aló?” he says. “That’s what you say when you answer the phone,” and everyone thinks this is so funny while I laugh and make a mental note to self never to answer the door saying “Aló?” We finish the skit, ending with two kids from the audience (my children in the skit) beating the crap out of my supposed loser husband, the man who used to be in a dress.
Well, I really turned out to be in this little comedy circle for hours…by now it was dark and I was cold, though I did stay long enough to see the end of the show and grab some food with the comics. I admitted to them that I absolutely wanted to kill them when they pulled me into that circle, though I did have fun after I felt a little more comfortable being in there. They made me promise I would come the next afternoon, where they were expecting more people, as it was a Sunday.
I did show up the next day, but not until late, purposely. I did not want to get dragged back in that circle again – one day was enough. It was dark out and I hung at the back of the circle. One of the kids from the night before was there, back in the middle (he obviously was more into it than I was), and he spotted me. His eyes lit up and he waved to me and immediately got the man in the dress’s attention to point me out. “Ah, mi amor” he screamed out, and waved me to come into the circle. No, I’m here today, but thanks. He looked disappointed but let me be.
I thought I would leave the next day (despite my bank card not yet arriving), but I woke up and just didn’t have it in me to do everything I needed to do to leave, so I decided I would stay another day (I had already been there over a week). The whole city sounded like it was exploding that morning, though everyone walked casually through the streets, so I didn’t worry. As I approached the main street I saw the source of the explosions – a march through the streets, which included blowing off fireworks. I couldn’t tell exactly what they were marching for, but it looked like something to do with coca plantation owners and licenses needed to grow coca. The Bolivians are known to march for their rights/beliefs, and very often roads are closed due to reasons like this. For me, this was as much as I ever saw the whole time in the country, though bigger protests and/or strikes have happened since I left.
On the last day I was in La Paz, on a last-ditch effort I went to the post office, hoping my bank card had arrived…what do you know – it had! Back in business. Good news.
As I waited for my bus to leave, the kid who spotted me at the comic’s circle recognized me again and sat down to talk. Apparently he sleeps in the bus station and sings songs on the buses to earn money. He sang his songs for me (3 in all) and then boarded the bus with me to sing for those on board. He wasn’t very good – it wasn’t like that endearing child singing…it was actually pretty shrill, and I don’t think he made anything other than what I gave him. Either way, he eagerly waved goodbye to me as the bus left.
I was taking a night bus to Potosí, the supposed highest city in the world (though I’ve heard about a few others that are higher since I’ve been there). Nevertheless, it’s pretty darn high, and I figured the bus would be cold at night so I sprung an extra 3 dollars or so and took the bus-cama, or bed bus, where the seats recline to almost fully laying down. This turned out to be some of my best spent 3 dollars because each seat also came with a wool blanket, and I think I even detected heat coming from below. Dare I complain that I was too hot during the ride?
Tags: Bolivia, Tag Index
Tania