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There seems to be a theme to every return I make to Sydney. Last year when I returned from Korea it felt like everyone was pairing up and settling down. There were more mortgages, more babies, more engagements. Returning to Sydney this time, though, the theme was catastrophic break-ups, or at least unexpected break-ups from my distant point of view. This time I wasn’t alone amongst the couples, the perennial third, fifth or fifteenth wheel. I was among peers.
Contrary to this trend, the official reason for my return to Sydney was to attend a family wedding. This was not just any wedding, though; this, my cousin’s wedding, was the first of our generation.
As the firstborn of the clan it perhaps should have been me who was first married. I, however, had long settled on the role of the prodigal, traveling cousin (although there seem to be more and more such prodigies in the family).
The bride came from a big Mormon family, and so it was to be a big Mormon wedding. Our family clustered around a table heavy with pitchers of beer and bottles of wine (and later latticed with wine stains), while the other side of the family sprawled over multiple well-dressed, tee-totaling tables.
They were an intimidating clan, not because of any unfriendliness, but simply because of the certainty that comes with their faith. An aspirant young movement, Mormonism seems to do little of the equivocating or splintering of other Christian groups. Do your missionary work at 19 (21 if you’re female), meet a partner while doing so or sooner afterwards, get married, start squiring children, raise them in the church, look good, be successful, share your success with the church so it can grow.
Of course practices like wearing very sombre ties, knocking unannounced on doors and (long-abolished) polygamy keep Mormonism well and truly untrendy, but at its core it should be attractive to more people, if for no other reason then because it more or less assures you of finding a partner and a welcoming community.
MCing the reception, stammering away in English and Spanish (the family of the bride was also Chilean, and while there were plenty of bilingual folk on their side of the room I was the only option on our side) I felt myself shrinking before all that Mormon certainty, all the pretty Mormon cousins and their confident, content spouses. I’d lost weight (not a good thing; I don’t have that much to lose) and spent most of my money in South America. My suit was enormous on me. I’d learned only half a language and contributed in only a very small way as a volunteer. My book was unpublished and I was once again lovelorn. Not enough people were reading my blog. I was tired from long and lonely nights on buses and in dingy hotel rooms, my clothes were falling apart and I was for the time living out of my parents’ fridge, trying to gain weight, dose up on vitamin B12 and taste everything I hadn’t tasted in eight months.
So, the obvious decision would have been to pack up myself and all my single buddies and take us off to a Mormon temple, to meet some pretty, modest girls, to get some wardrobe direction and some answers in life, to be forever surrounded by smiling, edifying faces, and to limit my travels to perhaps the odd missionary stint in between settling in the suburbs, making children and living the Mormon-American dream.
Instead I decided to keep doing what I have been doing, and to go live in Mexico…
When I lived in Korea if I saw a white guy in the street, I could be almost certain that he was a teacher, that he spoke English but very little Korean, and that he was only living in the country for a few years at most.
Things are not so easy in Bolivia though. A white or blonde or blue-eyed or tall person stands out on the streets of Bolivia, but that does not mean that the person is a gringo. As a blanket term to cover those people who are not gringos, I’ve – very unfairly – labelled them the Ruling Class.
The Ruling Class can be distinguished from resident gringos (i.e. volunteers) by their perfect Bolivian accents, by their more severe, very latin fashion, by their implants and immaculate make-up, and by their studied expressions of disdain for those beneath them.
Unfair as the term may seem, it is none the less true that the whiter people in Bolivia tend to be the wealthier ones. Historically the also tend to dominate Bolivian politics, often to advance their own interests (i.e. staying white, rich and beautiful).
For anyone who is curious, here are some places in Cochabamba at which you can be sure to find the Ruling Class.
At outdoor recreation facilities. Like all white people, the ruling class like to have an impressively even tan. They can be found perfecting their tans at the swimming pools and beach volleyball courts. Being taller and better looking than most people, the ruling class are particularly suited to volleyball. Note that soccer fields cannot be considered as recreation facilities, because they are ubiquitous and because soccer is a poor man’s sport.
At Burger King. Burger King is the only major western franchise in Cochabamba, and as such isn’t viewed as proletarian and common, but as prestigious. Although French fries are available at every eatery in Bolivia, Burger King fries are more expensive and thus considered superior by the ruling class. Burger King is thus a place for looking your best and splashing out with your ample cash.
At any other international eatery. Chicken, potatoes and rice are the staples of the Bolivian diet. Any other foods are considered exotic and thus elite by the ruling class. This is why they are so often found in Brazilian restaurants, or more rarely in Asian restaurants. Brazilian food is considered safer by many because it is not so distant in its exoticism.
North of the river. The river running through Cochabamba separates north from south, and attractive from common. North of the river the city begins to look more blandly suburban, and there is more space for recreational facilities and car parks. This is the ideal neighbourhood of the ruling class.
Behind very high walls topped by barbed wire or broken glass. In many places opulent houses are built to display to the neighbours, provoking jealousy. In Bolivia the nicer your house, the more you conceal it behind gates, walls, guards, broken glass and barbed wire to keep jealous people as far away from it as possible.
In an SUV. A cumbersome, fuel-guzzling vehicle may seem unsuited to the narrow, congested streets of Cochabamba, but these petty inconveniences are far outweighed by the prestige attached to owning such a vehicle, and by the opportunities these present, if you are a male, to ride around with your buddies throwing water balloons at girls. Such vehicles are also useful for keeping expensive hair, shoes, and faces out of the mud and rain when the wet season arrives.
At the Mormon temple. The Mormon temple in Cochabamba – the 82nd in the world – is located far north of the river, in the quietest, poshest area. It and its sprawling complex of buildings are surrounded by a high fence, and its white façade is visible from a great distance. Mormonism, like Burger King, is a western import, and while in much of the world this would not be so, the church in Cochabamba keeps to itself and to its splendid, north-side, ruling class neighbourhood.
c.23,000 – 10,000 B.C. The ocean ebbs low, revealing a land bridge connecting Siberia to Alaska. Tribes chase their game herds across the bridge and then are stranded when the waters rise again. Eventually the people begin to move south, populating the Americas from top to bottom.
c.10,000 B.C. Travellers from the empire of Mu, located on the lost continent of Mu in the Pacific Ocean, begin to colonise the world, founding Egyptian and Greek civilisation, as well as Central American civilisation and the Rapa Nui on Easter Island. Shortly thereafter the empire of Mu is obliterated in a single cataclysmic night.
c. 700 B.C. – 200 A.D. U.F.O.s descend from space into southern Peru. They choose as their landing place the deserts of Nazca, their craft leaving great trenches and marks in the desert rock. The local Nazca people seek to emulate these marvellous beings, and begin creating their own lines in the stone, by digging away at the rusty surface stone to reveal the pale stone underneath. They create hundred of runways and other geometric shapes to please the visitors, as well as a giant frog, and some more animals.
34 A.D. Darkness covers the city of Bountiful, located somewhere in the New World. Jesus Christ descends from the heavens to show his crucifixion wounds to the faithful people gathered at the temple in Bountiful. Records of his visit are etched on gold plates by a succession of prophets, the last of whom is Moroni the son of Mormon. Moroni buries the plates, and they are later found by Joseph Smith, first prophet of the Church of Latter-Day Saints.
1001 A.D. Leif Ericson, a Viking explorer, pieces together the accounts of various other Norse sailors, and uses these to sail to the New World via Greenland. He establishes a short-lived settlement that he calls Vinland. Later it is renamed Newfoundland.
1492 A.D. Christopher Columbus officially discovers the New World when he sets eyes on The Bahamas. He establishes a colony in modern day Haiti, and begins naming the Caribbean islands. Some of these names, like St. Ursula and the Eleven Thousand Virgins, are eventually shortened for the sake of practicality. Columbus doesn’t find much gold and most of his captured slaves die on the way back to Spain. It is a very disappointing trip for him.
1530 A.D. Francisco Pizarro sets out on his fourth voyage down the West Coast of South America. In the space of five years the illiterate adventurer and his gang of fortune-seekers explore the coast of Peru, encounter the Inca emperor Atahualpa, capture him and demand a ransom, receive the gold and kill him anyway, route his enormous army, sack the capital Cusco and establish a new city, Lima, the city of kings. Further north Pizarro’s second cousin Hernando Cortes does the same thing in Mexico.
1659 A.D. Robinson Crusoe is shipwrecked and marooned on an island off the coast of Venezuela. His adventures inspire Alexander Selkirk to do similar; he is shipwrecked on an island now called Robinson Crusoe Island, off the coast of Chile. Prior to these adventures Crusoe was a plantation and slave owner in Brazil.
1806 A.D. A British force tries to invade Argentina. The Spanish colonial government retreats but local forces defeat the British, and in so doing realise that they probably don’t need the Spanish any more. Jose de San Martin liberates much of southern South America. Simon Bolivar does the same for northern South America. They meet briefly in Ecuador. Mexico also declares independence, as does most of Central America and the Caribbean. By 1825 only Cuba and Puerto Rico still belong to Spain.
c.1849 A.D. The influx of Chinese labourers to Peru begins. 150 years later there are over a million people of Chinese descent in Peru. The Chinese influence invigorates Peruvian cuisine, putting it on the international map and putting a Chifa – Chinese Peruvian restaurant – on every street.
1911 A.D. Hiram Bingham discovers Machu Picchu. Local Quechua people who had been living at the site are eventually replaced by hundreds of thousands of tourists. Bingham lifts thousands of cultural artifacts, taking them with him back to Yale University. His adventures inspire Indiana Jones to do similar.
1934 A.D. Evelyn Waugh publishes A Handful of Dust, a novel developed from his travels through Guyana and Brazil. The sixth chapter of the book may be single-handedly responsible for the lack of tourism in the Guyanas and northern Brazil today.
1951 A.D. Klaus Barbie, a former Gestapo member known as the Butcher of Lyon is smuggled into Juan Peron’s Argentina. He later moves to Bolivia where he buys and sells arms for Israel and participates in a right-wing coup. Peron allowed many Nazi war criminals to seek refuge in Argentina. He also sympathised with Jewish rights, and accepted more Jewish refugees than any other Latin American nation. Argentina has one of the largest Jewish populations in the world.
1962 A.D. Lots of ships from the Soviet Union begin to arrive in Cuba. Officially these are merchant vessels, but they contain an awful lot of soldiers and missiles. Later in the year the arsenal returns to the USSR.
2005 A.D. Andy and I arrive i Santiago de Chile. We speak very little Spanish but are very excited. On our first night we eat cheese empanadas and french fries and drink local beer at an outdoor table of a pub in Barrio Brasil. We think it marvellous and afterwards travel for two and a half months in Chile, Argentina, Uruguay, Peru, Costa Rica and Mexico. Andy meets a girl and we part ways in France. I move to Spain and travel around bits of Europe. Later i return to the U.S. Then I move to Korea.
2008 A.D. I return to Latin America and am immensely happy about it.
