I am thirty three years old and have not once seriously considered moving to Bolivia.
It’s weird, because normally I wouldn’t even mention that.
But here we are. Most women do end up moving to Bolivia.
And by my age, you’re pretty much expected to have already moved there or at least you’re supposed to be trying really hard to get there.
To be clear: I have nothing against Bolivia. It seems like a lovely place. Just not one that pulls me. It has never called my name.
And even though I don’t talk about my relationship (or non-relationship) to Bolivia, we will talk about it today.
Because I have words that need to be said about loneliness, power and the extremely problematic word: “choice”.
Loneliness.
There is so much of it when it comes to this hard topic of Bolivia. Or maybe it’s not so much loneliness as isolation.
Every woman has her own experience, her own relationship with moving or not moving to Bolivia. These relationships are often painful, challenging, hard to express.
So you have the women (like my dear friend E.) who are desperate to get into Bolivia. They wait in lines, jump through endless bureaucratic hoops, do what they can.
Sometimes dying inside from the frustration of seeing how other women end up there with such ease.
Then those women — the ones who weren’t even planning Bolivia — they’re isolated too. An extra glass of wine and bam. Welcome to Bolivia.
There are women who aren’t in Bolivia and are happy. Women who aren’t in Bolivia and are unhappy. Women who wanted to move to Bolivia but now wish they hadn’t. Women who didn’t want to move to Bolivia but are now delighted to be there.
And the ones who don’t know if they’re going, but determined to be happy either way.
It’s hard for us to find each other and talk to each other, because each of us is having such a different experience. It gets lonely.
“Choice.”
This word. I have no more patience for it.
I feel frustrated and helpless when people ask me why I’ve “chosen” not to move to Bolivia because I don’t know how to answer.
And I feel uncomfortable when people support me, saying they defend my “choice”, because I need to know support is there even when choosing is irrelevant.
What choice? There has never been a question of choosing or deciding anything.
This concept makes no sense to me.
I didn’t choose not to move to Bolivia.
I didn’t choose not to move to Bolivia any more than I chose not to become obsessed with traditional Armenian embroidery.
I didn’t choose not to move to Bolivia any more than I chose not to take up water polo.
It’s not that anything is wrong with life in Bolivia or Armenian embroidery or water polo.
It’s this:
If it were not for the fact that so many of the women I know are either moving to Bolivia or talking about moving to Bolivia, it never would have occurred to me to even think about it.
The only reason I think about Bolivia is that so many of my friends now live there. And that so many people have opinions about me not being there.
But to say that I chose this life of Not Living in Bolivia? Impossible.
What is choice?
To me, choice generally implies at least some of the following characteristics:
[+ consideration]
[+ giving active thought to something]
[+ both sides have to be appealing or compelling in some way]
[+ caring about the outcome]
[+ weighing the odds]
[+ pros vs cons]
[+ following intuition]
[+ being pulled towards something]
[+ wanting]
It isn’t that I decided against Bolivia. That never came up. It didn’t need to.
There was no decision-making process, because Bolivia exerts no pull over me.
I heart Bolivia.
The food, the culture, the art. The warmth and friendliness. Yay Bolivia.
And I know a lot more about life in Bolivia than I’d ever planned to, now that so many friends and colleagues live there.
To be honest, certain aspects of life there sound pretty distressing to me. But then after they tell you about the awful parts, they gaze at you intently and wish it for you.
So who knows. It must be like when I lived in Tel Aviv for a decade and people thought it had to be awful when actually it was sublime. So I can be pro-Bolivia. And still not feel the desire to ever move there.
Things that are hard about not moving to Bolivia.
The social pressure. The assumptions. The way people ask you when you’re moving to Bolivia and you explain that you aren’t and they say “Oh, I’m so sorry.”
As if you’ve just said you were dying when you are actually expressing completeness.
Losing friends. Some of my friends who have moved to Bolivia are amazing. Like Pam and Naomi and Jen.* You can talk to them about Bolivia but also politics and business and art and creativity and seven thousand other things.
* Other neat people in Bolivia: Jesse and Amber and Jenny the Bloggess!
Other friends are full-time evangelists for Bolivian life. And while I’m happy to spend an hour looking at pictures or admiring the landscape, I can’t do all-Bolivia-all-the-time. I miss the opinionated, curious, hilarious women I used to know.
And the vocabulary of choice. The way it has to be about “decisions”. I don’t want to identify as “Bolivia-less by Choice”. Where are my people who also didn’t choose?
The pull of Bolivia.
I know this mysterious pull that Bolivia exerts on women must exist, because I keep hearing about it.
My biologist friends insist it’s a thing. Maybe.
Maybe a biological thing that not everyone is susceptible to, plus cultural programming and expectations that people are mostly unaware of. I don’t know.
All I know is that I have never felt it.
And that I have girlfriends who are considerably older than me and who also have never felt it.
And that they, like me, heard those hollow words over and over again: “When you’re older, you’ll change your mind about Bolivia.”
Without the pull, there’s nothing.
“Changing your mind” is another one of those choice things. Like decision. As if all I have to do is stop being so determined not to go there.
But I’m not “determined”. I just don’t understand why I should. And I’m pretty sure that if it were about choosing, and I weighed the pros and cons, my non-Bolivia life would win every time in the categories that matter to me.
Of course, if I had a burning desire to be in Bolivia, those other needs wouldn’t matter as much. They would pale in comparison.
And I’d find a way to make it work. Believe me, if I wanted to live in Bolivia, I would move mountains trying to get there.
But since there’s nothing that instills in me a desire to move there, it’s not about choices and choosing. It’s about living my life.
I’m living my life.
And loving my life.
Not because I made a choice. But because I’m here, and here — for me — is good.
And comment zen for today.
I’ve been wanting to write this post for years. And not wanting to at the same time.
Because I know that some people are not really capable of encountering a different way and still understanding that we are both allowed to have our way. Of knowing that my way doesn’t imply that your way is wrong.
I get my way. They gets theirs. Also, the entire culture supports the way that isn’t mine, so trying to tell me I’m wrong in what I know to be true for myself? Not cool.
Anyway. All that to say that this is a hard, sensitive topic. With so much potential for pain, misunderstanding, distortion.
I hope it is clear that I have love in my heart for women who live in a variety of ways. And that I am not picking on Bolivia. All places have their own charm.
We all have our stuff. We’re all working on our stuff. We let people have their own experience. And we don’t give advice, unless someone asks for it.
What I don’t want: “I support (or don’t support) your choice”. This is not about choice for me. It’s about mindfulness and trust and many other things, but not choice.
What I’d love: Your stories. What you know about isolation and about completeness.
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Wow. Just, wow. This is possibly the greatest and most eloquent thing I’ve ever read on the whole Bolivia issue.
There is a woman in Australia, who is currently our caretaker Prime Minister, who was once described by an opponent as being incapable of understanding issues faced by, uh, South America because she is, and I quote, ‘deliberately barren’. Excuse me while I vomit in my hat a little bit at the memory of that soundbite.
I don’t know how I feel about Bolivia. I think I’ll go there someday but I don’t feel especially pulled there. I guess I’ve been assuming that a future me will feel the pull. But maybe she won’t, and maybe that’s alright.
I’m not in Bolivia.
It’s possible that I might move there someday, but right now I’m too busy trying to sort out whether moving to Bolivia is something I really want or if it’s something that I’ve just always been told that I’m supposed to want.
It doesn’t help that nearly all my friends from high school, even girls two or three years my junior, are either in Bolivia already or on their way there. Many of my friends from college are in Bolivia too, and many others have been planning and dreaming about moving to Bolivia since they were little girls.
And I’m not sure if I want to go. Part of me says maybe, but I’m not sure if that’s my voice or the voices of all the women who’ve told me I have to.
I find the thought of Bolivia kind of terrifying. And it’s never seemed to particularly care for me, either. I’ve always been told that it will be different once I actually get there, but I don’t know if I really believe that. Not that I’m anti-Bolivia; my friends who are there seem very happy to be there, and I’m happy for them. I’m just anti-pressure.
And for the record, I don’t feel like there is anything missing from my life without having gone to Bolivia.
Thanks so much for sharing this post, Havi. It’s so refreshing for me to see a woman who isn’t interested in Bolivia, or for that matter, in trying to convince me to go there.
For my friends who’ve unintentionally headed to Bolivia, all I’ve ever said was, “You know you have options, right?” in a way that is completely unattached to outcome and is my way of saying whatever you want is fine with me.
At nearly 37, I find I’m just more certain that Bolivia has no pull for me. I do miss my friends though, but truthfully, I started missing them when they got hitched/seriously attached. 30s are a rapidly changing landscape of relationships and I have no Bolivians to play with yours.
.-= claire´s last post … Lakeside Splash =-.
Right on!
(Inquiring minds want to know, though: why Bolivia?)
I’m not in Bolivia. I used to say I’d fight tooth & nail to stay out of Bolivia, but now I am kinda maybe slightly considering that if I ever found myself there accidentally during my life travels, I wouldn’t mind hanging out. But not booking a trip any time soon.
It’s all the expectations around Bolivia that get me. My parents lived in Bolivia for a while, but the climate didn’t suit them at all. Dad got out as soon as he conceivably (ha!) could, which was a bummer for my Mom because she’d wanted to move to Bolivia since she was 11. So I grew up thinking living in Bolivia is teh horrible.
However, the contrarian part of me has often wanted to just move to Bolivia to SHOW THEM! Hah! Nolite te bastardes carborundorum, like they say nowhere at all. But moving to another continent just to piss off some random people never struck me as particularly useful, in a general Maartje-context.
Completeness is another kettle of fish, though. I don’t feel complete often, but I know that my completeness can’t be found in another person, another job or another continent. So I tend towards staying put until I find that completeness, or at least not moving anywhere hoping to find it there.
.-= Maartje´s last post … Why I’m not an honest person – Part 1 =-.
ahahaha, I had to read this twice. Durrr. Bolivia is a great country, I’m sure, but I prefer the cold, and the food disagrees with my stomach, and I’m one of those people who would, like, lose the plane ticket, and forget to pay the electric bills, and man the native flora just really makes those allergies flare up like crrrazy.
My parents are really disappointed about my continued insistence that I will never go to Bolivia. I keep telling them my sister not only wants to go but wants to run a daycare there, ffs. But parents are greedy sometimes I think. The waters in Bolivia could be spiced up, by my jeans, I guess? I have some really high-quality jeans that would do great being washed there. I’m sure many of you here all know that line of reasoning.
I don’t feel isolated because three of my best friends are here (read: taking a loving, thoughtful restraining order against Bolivia,) including my partner, and while lots of couples really /love/ the dynamic of living in Bolivia, I feel like our mutual preference not to live there is one of the many things that makes our relationship beautiful and trusting and a partnership that will take us through thick and thin.
But perhaps that’s just a matter of my feeling okay with gravitating toward meaningful relationships with people who all feel the same way about Bolivia? I don’t harbor any ill well toward people who choose it and love it. I guess I see it as a quaint eccentric preference, though. I suppose I’m the quaint one, heh.
But me and my partner? We’re Northerners, dammit. Pass me the parka, please.
.-= mish´s last post … On Grammatical Magic =-.
This. THIS.
I have heard all my life that I would “change my mind” about Bolivia, since I was a teenager declaring that Bolivia held no appeal for me. I am so, so glad to know that there are others for whom it is just never a choice, not an option, nothing that exerts any pull.
Bolivia is great, it’s a totally necessary part of the world, and I’m glad so many people want to go there and love their lives there.
But I’ll stay over here, thanks.
(Also, I have a series of CDs of ’80s music entitled “Living in Oblivion” that will now forever be “Living in Bolivia” in my head, so, uh, thanks?)
.-= Amy Crook´s last post … Torn =-.
I am utterly ambivalent about visiting Bolivia, which can be a hard thing to be. I feel like I’m ‘supposed’ to have strong feelings one way or another.
I’ve given it a lot of thought. I’ve wondered if maybe I would like to go, but it seems that while the place has many charms, the government makes many demands on its women. I can’t balance the loss of freedom with the rewards, it seems like something that wouldn’t work out for me.
Thank you for writing this. It’s a hard subject, especially when you don’t fit into the categories most people think of.
I like this a lot. I am in Bolivia and I like it here and is pretty sure I am meant to be here. I didn’t choose to get here. I also didn’t choose not to get here. I just got here and was happy with all the hard and awesome but I know that other places have their hard and awesome too. I am better for being here but I think it has more to do with the way I live now and that is something that I do choose. Bolivia is wonderful but completeness lies elsewhere for me and I think the Bolivians would appreciate it if I kept it like that. I also don’t understand why everybody is expected to come here. It is not as if Bolivia is empty.
I’m not a woman, but people think I am, so I am looking forward to being old enough that they think I should be booking my Bolivia flight. Just so I can say I’m not going. I’m obnoxious like that.
Actually, I’m kind of afraid that no one will ask me about it because they will clearly see that I won’t have anyone to go with me. Perhaps for me, it’ll be the lack of traveling companion that will have people saying, “Oh, I’m sorry.” Fortunately I can still be obnoxious and say, “Really? There’s no need to be. I’m not.”
In a way I suppose I did choose to steer clear of all traveling companions and to steer waaay clear of Bolivia, but the choice was a mere formality. It was never going to be anything different. It was a choice between being myself and not being myself. What kind of choice is that?
But I guess I do think I’m making a choice, even though I read this post, Havi, and kept saying, “Yes, that is me, yes, yes.” The existentialist in me is comfortable when it feels like I am making choices. If no one had ever confronted me with the idea of going to Bolivia I would never have thought of it on my own, so it couldn’t have been a choice, but now that I know about it I am actively, definitively, joyfully choosing to stay right where I am.
I’m sending you a postcard that says “You’ve Got A Friend in ACountryOtherThanBolivia” !
Yep. Not feeling the pull either, and haven’t really, for as long as I can remember. I’m curious about all aspects of the *trip* to Bolivia, though, because it’s such a crazy, fascinating process. I can listen to people talk about it for about an hour or so (then I get bored and, I’m sorry to admit, feel left out).
It’s so hard to convince people that it’s not necessarily a choice. There are still so many old-fashioned ideas floating around out there. I’ve been told more than once that I’m not really a woman if I don’t feel the urgent need to live in Bolivia. And also that I won’t be a real woman *until* I get there. Strangely enough, I’ve been feeling pretty womanly for a couple decades now. Hmmm.
I wish there were a way to show the world that all of us can do perfectly Bolivian things in our daily life without actually buying a ticket and moving there, and that this kind of Bolivian-ness can be more than enough for us. I’m pretty sure my life can have a very Bolivian quality to it without me having to change continents. If that makes sense.
Looking forward to more stretching of the Bolivia analogy here! Thank you, thank you, thank you for writing this post. I think a bit of isolation just disappeared.
Luckily, the people in my life have more or less come to realise that Bolivia is completely irrelevant to me, so the whole “when are you moving there?” is a non-issue for me.
However – losing friends once they relocate there? That is a very real issue, and one that I have been facing a lot more ever since I turned 30.
It’s always the same feeling when a friend announces she’s leaving : while I am very happy for her that she’s found her dream place, I cannot help but feel a tinge of sadness at the thought that I won’t see her as often anymore.
Despite promises to write, those who relocate to Bolivia (or so I have observed) tend to mostly hang out with fellow Bolivians, and get so immersed in Bolivian life that they can only communicate with the folks back home with difficulty.
Obviously someone ought to do something to improve telecommunications between Bolivia and the rest of the world. I’ll admit I am not sure how to do my part, and I’m open to all suggestions.
.-= Emmanuelle Archer´s last post … When you have a project you have to do… =-.
This is the BEST piece on The Bolivian Question I have ever seen.
As someone who did find herself emigrating/immigrating twice, having sworn that I wanted to see the world but always live in the same area, it really clicks. I didn’t choose to live in the US because I had any desire to do so, but because the Love Of My Life was there; now I’m really glad I did it, and he’s really glad he moved back to Blighty with me, though he never planned to do it before.
—
I always assumed I’d go to Bolivia. Indeed, I believed that if I didn’t go there, there would be a massive internal abyss of pain that would destroy me.
Seriously. I wasn’t always sure I wanted to have someone to go there with me, but I knew – I just knew! – that I wanted to go and stay there for the rest of my life.
And then immigration wouldn’t let me in. There I was, in the queue, bag packed, travelling companion holding my hand, and they picked up my passport and said, “NO!” and made me go to the immigration office where big, intimidating people said I would have to jump through loads of really difficult hoops just to have a shot at getting getting the right visa.
And my travelling companion and I did a lot of hard thinking, and I felt like I was dying, and I wept until I honestly felt there were no tears left, and…
… we had a moment of utter clarity, said, “Sod this for a game of soldiers!” and left.
Turns out that Bolivia was one of those places it would have been lovely to live in, but it just wasn’t essential to having a happy life. All that time, I’d thought it was really vital, and it turned out that I was wrong.
Turns out that being a tourist is a really lovely thing. There are Bolivian colonies all over the place – and lots of Bolivians in my family – and because the Bolivians I know are lovely people, I can thoroughly enjoy myself and then go home to my house on my land and sleep in my bed.
All the advantages, and very little hassle. It rocks.
And now, if the immigration office called me and said, “Hey, we screwed up the process – you can come and live here after all!”, I’d smile and say thank you, and turn them down. Because I like where I live.
I don’t need anyone’s pity or sympathy or sense that I’m losing out. If I felt that I was, I’d go to the immigration offices and do all the damn paperwork and get fingerprinted and all the other degrading, dehumanising things that I associate with immigration thanks to dealing with the old US immigration service, and just stick it out until I got to Bolivia. Turns out I really can’t be arsed.
—
And I’ll say this: Even in the midst of my desperation, it always struck me that people who felt they’d the right to tell others that they should/n’t want to emigrate to Bolivia were doing it because they either felt like they had the wrong visa, or because they just didn’t have the maturity to empathise with others, neither of which seem like good things.
I am thirty three also and I have never felt the pull of Bolivia either. Many of my friends have gone there. I even love Bolivia through their experience. Because I love them and whatever makes them happy must be good for them and deserving of love. But some anonymous postcards of Bolivia would not make go: Aw.
I consider the possibility that with time the circumstances around me would change and that the right companion would persuade me to go in Bolivia. But I am not heading there because I want to and I am not definitely searching for a companion to achieve this particular end (and then go on by myself).
Havi, I am delighted by your creative ways.
As for Bolivia. My trip to Bolivia was planned and thought out and getting there was the most intentional process I ever gone through. And still the most unexpected realization came, once there, which indicated that my expectations of the trip were totally messed up.
In all of my thinking of living in Bolivia I was picturing me and how I will feel there. Once there it became clear that how I feel is not as important as how Bolivians feel. It’s Bolivians first down here, me second. A process in my thinking that I was not familiar with before. The fact that at times this feels good is downright freaky.
To me moving to Bolivia became a process of self-discovery and self-rediscovery. It is difficult (most of the time: try to put the shoes on the non-cooperating Bolivian), painful (at times: unhappy Bolivians bite it turns out, and throw shoes at me) and sometimes joyful/happy. Nothing different than what my life was before Bolivia. Except the math of course, now it is two lifes instead of one.
OK I have to admit I am for the first time bamboozled by a topic. What, what, what? Why Bolivia?????? I had no idea this was such a conversation starter nor do I have any real idea why anyone would pack up and move there. But hey, each to their own right. And a good thing too.
Thanks for keeping me out of the dark all
xx
I love this post.
I never wanted to go to Bolivia until one day when I woke up and realised I had to get the next flight out, come hell or high water. I didn’t talk to people about my secret love of Bolivia, because I thought they’d think I was mad. I had hated Bolivia, and now all I wanted to do was get there.
It turns out that Bolivia is lovely but very complicated. It looked great from the travel brochures but living here is a lot more challenging than I expected. I have good friends who don’t live here and I think by now we understand each other. In fact it’s usually the arguments and infighting within Bolivia itself that really tire me out, about how best to live as a Bolivian.
It was never a ‘choice’, though. That’s such a bloodless word. It was a strong desire pulling me here. If I hadn’t felt that pull, I certainly wouldn’t be here now. The place is a mess.
@killermouse I think you’ll find this is one of Havi’s metaphor mouse situations, and quite a clever one at that. Have a think about the context of the article and the responses and you’ll likely work it out. Further hint: it’s all about women and a life stage that many assume that EVERY woman wants, craves and desires (often with a subconscious suggestion that women are not complete without entering this life stage; that is can be referred to as a “life stage” is implicit enough), what Havi has gentled opened a discussion on relates to the fact that this is not the case for many women.
Now, my story:
I have only ever in my life entertained the thought of moving to Bolivia for maybe a day (cumulative total). It’s never appealed. This is not a decision, it’s not a choice, it’s just a thing, part of who I am. Luckily for me I come from a part of the world which is quite liberal and enough of my female friends feel the same that I’ve never been isolated by this situation. Conversely many of my nearest and dearest have made the decision to move to Bolivia and wonderfully our friendship network is strong and flexible enough to encompass both. In many respects this network operates as an extended family group, a tribe, a community, a village. in this group the classic saying operates: It takes a village to raise a native Bolivian.
Which is important to the rest of my story in relation to moving to Bolivia. What I have always known is that I have a strong desire to care for and be involved in the life of small people who are the result of someone else moving to Bolivia and who may need a female in their life who loves them and tells them that it’s cool and it’s all going to be OK (for instance whose Bolivian sponsors have subsequently separated…).
Please note, this is also not a “choice”, this is the way I am.
I recently had this opportunity. I met, and subsequently lived with a man who had a small person in his life as the result of a previous partner who moved to Bolivia. So, for every other weekend I functioned as someone who had moved to Bolivia, without actually having done so. It was interesting, rewarding, challenging and tiring all at the same time.
Then this man and I split up, and with that I was removed from the relationship with this small person. Interestingly I have little sadness about the end of the relationship with the man – we’re both adults, and adults choose the conditions of their lives and sometimes ending a relationship is part of this. I do however have a deep well of sadness at losing contact with his small person, and I wonder how she is dealing with the whole thing, and I wish that I could give her a big hug, tell her she’s wonderful and that it will all be OK. I’m working out ways of doing this that respect her, and respect the other people in her life who care for her. -it’s a big sovereignty thing for everyone-
I have had friends who have suggested that at some stage (in my 30s) I’d change, and start desiring to move to Bolivia. My response has always been “maybe, and I’ll deal with that if it occurs, but my experience of myself to this point in time is that I have no desire to do so”.
Since this experience I have observed a very small, very fragile desire to maybe, possibly, at some stage consider the vague idea of potentially moving to Bolivia. Which would have been entirely out of the question even a few months ago. I’m sitting with it. Not pushing or examining or questioning, or denying, suppressing or destroying. Like Havi has said, and as I’ve always known, the decision to move or not move to Boliva is not a “choice”, it’s simply whatever is natural and normal for each of us. If at some stage we change outlooks then this is natural and normal as well.
———–
One final point I’d like to bring to this wonderful sharing of this very complex area. It’s not just women who struggle with moving to Boliva (or not) and all this entails.
Many of my male friends either desperately want to be part of the process of moving to Bolivia but either have not found someone to move there with, or the person they are with does not want to move there. For them this is stressful, depressing and sometimes heart-breaking, as they can only get through Bolivian immigration though sponsorship by a female.
Conversely, others of my male friends have been unceremoniously parachuted into Bolivia and will spend the rest of their lives dealing with this situation.
This is not just a conversation for women. It is a conversation for all of us.
(Havi: this is one of the best and most gentle discussions of this issue I’ve ever come across. I will be sharing this with a number of my dearly beloved friends. Thank you for finding the courage and space to write about it)
So I had no interest in Bolivia, in fact never spent anytime around the populace or language and was too busy with figuring out my life to care. Then one day, I started listening to Spanish and trying to find as many Bolivians as I could – I felt the pull. Ali, you’re right it is a mess here. And the infighting is brutal. Once a Bolivian, it isn’t really possible revoke citizenship, but it is possible to reach retirement age – which is where I am. Over time, I’ve come to realize that my particular path (not much better than the word, journey, I know) required that I move to Bolivia in order to learn humility, which I guess I wasn’t going to learn any other way. What being Bolivian means to others – well, only they can tell me. And I say, yay for tourists, ethnographers, and those not interested in Bolivia at all.
Maybe it’s ’cause I’m a guy, but I’ve never heard of this “women and Bolivia” thing.
I have total space for you to be awesome without ever going to Bolivia. Not that you need it, ’cause you’ve just declared that freedom for yourself with this post.
Still, anyone who implies we *should* do a particular thing with our lives is just barfing projections and self-fixes on us. And barfing on others is impolite.
P.S. I received my Shiva Nata package yesterday and am so excited about starting that… I haven’t started.
Desire = fear, wash, repeat.
Thanks for all you do.
There is only one reason I’d want to move to Bolivia. And one tiny singular, lovely reason is not enough when I think I’d absolutely despise everything else about living there.
I too, have always, always questioned this urge to move to Bolivia – I don’t see the appeal. And I have always, always been told “Oh, when you’re older you’ll be desperate to move to Boliva… I didn’t want to move to Bolivia when I was your age either. But you will.”
Grrr.
It’s nice to see other people happy not living in Bolivia with me 🙂
(Also it’s lovely to know your age – I’ve always been curious)
.-= ShimmerGeek´s last post … F Me- Ray Bradbury =-.
At fifteen I decided that Bolivia was not an option for me. It was a definite choice and a clear decision for me. I decided on an alternative immigratory route, if and only if, it is ever an option.
And I have dealt with the “You’ll change your mind one day” and the “you’ll meet a travel partner who will make you want to go to Bolivia” and the “it’s enough to make anyone go to Bolivia” comments when faced with a particularly adorable part of the landscape etc etc and still I know that I’ve make the right decision for ME.
Should an appropriate travel partner show their face I’m figuring that rather than trying to change my mind, they will be of the same mind and not that interested in Bolivia, since they’re the right partner for me and trying to change one of my most fundamental choices isn’t really what a travel partner for me is all about.
I am happy not being in Bolivia, with or without a travelling companion. I can be a tourist and that is perfect and I’ll say this to my fifteen year old self – she makes good choices for me.
It’s funny — I’ve lived here for well over a decade now, yet there are still times when I look up in astonishment and think, Holy cats, I’m in Bolivia. How did that happen?!
I do love it here. I find Bolivia breathtakingly beautiful. At the same time, I never forget my homeland. The country of my birth has shaped me, has made me the person I am today. I always knew that I would want to retain dual citizenship. In some ways it’s a challenge, being bi-cultural — but really, it’s just me, being who I am.
In such a wide, wonderful world, with so many countries to visit and inhabit, surely there must be plenty of room for all of us to be who we truly are.
.-= Kathleen Avins´s last post … Thirty-one days later- and I’m still here… =-.
All my friends packed up and moved to Bolivia en masse. Maybe not all, but it feels that way the last couple of years (I’m 32).
It’s really not something that has ever interested me, I haven’t chosen anything, I’m just living my little life my own little way.
If I feel the pull one day, I *may* choose to go. But not because my friends have browbeaten me into joining the Bolivia club, or my parents think I ought to or any other shoulds.
.-= MrsA2B´s last post … After the rain… =-.
Thanks for this, sweetie, for sharing something you’ve been wanting to say for years, and for framing it in a way that no one else does.
I’ve never felt the pull toward Bolivia either, not at all. I used to explain by saying that I’ve never felt moved to become an astronaut, either.
It actually feels like something I have no choice about, like being 5 foot three.
I’m lucky, though, in that it hardly ever comes up. Maybe people think I’d be a terrible Bolivian, so they never mention it.
I’ve never been pressured to move to Bolivia by family (though my boss once remarked ‘EVERYONE should relocate there.’ Which was weird). Most of my friends actually HAVEN’T moved there, though some really, really want to.
It comes up so rarely that I’m taken aback when someone actually does bring it up.
So this is just to say that you’re not alone in not choosing.
xo
This post. This. This freaking post. Thank you. At long last. I think I’ve been waiting to read this for years.
And too, Ali? I love how you put this: “It was never a ‘choice’, though. That’s such a bloodless word.”
.-= Heidi Fischbach (@curiousHeidiHi)´s last post … Wherein Hot ‘n’ Steamy Monday Momma pays me a visit And writes a guest post =-.
I have never wanted to move to Bolivia, and it has never been a big agonizing decision for me either. I just don’t want to go there.
I wish people who do a happy trip and hope they love living there, but I’m quite glad to stay here (no matter how much they think we should be neighbours). I mean, I don’t even like the weather there, and the landscape is okay I guess, but there are other countries that are way more to my taste.
My gentleman friend has arranged things so he can’t get a visa to get into Bolivia, and we’re both quite happy about that.
I’ve not moved to Bolivia. I’ve never had the desire to move to Bolivia. I’m pretty sure my passport is not valid for Bolivia. And I’m happy about that. I’ll enjoy it via photos. And I’ll watch the joy on the faces of my friends who live there.
This is the first time — which is surprising in itself, since I’m pretty far down the life road — that I’ve heard this topic articulated in just this way: about it not being a matter of “choice.” I’ve gotten just a bit prickly when I’ve heard the (well-meant) phrase from others about supporting my “choice.” “I don’t need your support,” I want to say. “I haven’t made any choices. I haven’t lost or gained anything; I haven’t agonized and settled. This is simply how my life IS, complete. This is the way it’s supposed to be.”
So often, women who don’t go to Bolivia are seen either as people to be pitied or people to be admired. I’m neither.
Ohmyword! I would never have thought much about this if you hadn’t brought it up, Havi. And i NEVER would’ve thought of wrapping a topic like this around Bolivia – lol!
My experience (long ago – because I’m 55) seems similar to what you wrote. I didn’t give a lot of thought to Bolivia when I was younger. I wanted to go to law school and be a female F.Lee Bailey – something I couldn’t imagine happening if I lived in Bolivia.
But really, I just didn’t give it a lot of thought. And was NOT thrilled with friends who couldn’t wait to get there (it seemed lame, the language bored/gagged me, and I wasn’t in the place then of acceptance that there are lots of ways to be/do).
I didn’t feel lonely in my lack of Bolivia-thrilledness (tho I did shake my head a lot, especially when seemingly brilliant friends would launch into Bolivia-speak, which I didn’t know/or care to know), it just seemed like men were more interesting to talk to – WAY less likely to go Bolivia on me.
I DID feel isolated when I moved to Bolivia though (not to mention surprised – but that’s another story) because, though I felt like Mother Earth – and loved BEing a Bolivian – I still shook my head and gagged when people did the Bolivia-speak thing (and they’re so much more likely to do that when you’re in the country).
And being Bolivian didn’t give me a sense of completeness – probably quite the opposite. From this side of things I can say I’m glad I lived in Bolivia, though I think it’s obviously not my country-of-origin. And I totally *get* not feeling like it’s a choice — not being pulled by it.
.-= Square-Peg Karen´s last post … Interview with Pajama-wearing Motivational Speaker- Patty K =-.
Oh. So beautiful.
It was always very clear to me that I wouldn’t go to Bolivia. It never once seemed like something there would be any point in. Then I met my girlfriend, and found out that going to Bolivia was something really important to her. Kind of like learning and reading and traveling other places in the world is important to me. And seeing these things through each other’s eyes, both of us have learned why these things are appealing. So now she learns and reads and travels with me, and I have no doubt that we’ll make the trip to Bolivia someday. This was an entirely unexpected turn of events for me.
.-= Kylie´s last post … i recognize you =-.
Thank u Havi. Thank u for having the courage to write about this … specially in such an awesome and respectful way. And thanks to all the comment posters too …. I’m not feeling lonely now … love to u all xxx
I’m 32, and I’ve never been particularly interested in Bolivia (or Bolivians) either. So many of my friends have moved there, and I think it’s rude to be totally disinterested in friends’ lives whether they’re into Bolivians or basket-weaving… so I do end up hanging out with a few Bolivians from time to time, and it’s not really so terrible. But it’s really not my thing at all.
Most of the people I know have stopped asking me when I’m going to move to Bolivia. This is good, because I got tired of smiling and saying “not yet” to people I didn’t want to insult, while thinking “When are you going to get a Rottweiler? What’s that, you don’t like big drooly dogs? Well, I don’t like Bolivia.”
It can be lonely, here. Sure, friends visit from Bolivia, but it’s really not the same as when we lived in the same town together.
My travel agent told me that it might not have seemed like much of a choice when I was younger, but now that I’m in my 30s I have to make an actual decision about whether or not to move to Bolivia. I don’t get it. I’ve never wanted to move there before, so why do I have to put my foot down about it now? Why can’t I just keep on not moving there?
.-= Pirate´s last post … In Which the Pirate’s Knitting is Stalled =-.
I ended up on the wrong flight and found myself in Bolivia, but I never quite found the language. I never felt like the other Bolivians and I definitely interacted with my llamas in a different way than most Bolivians do. I see other women just starting their sojourn in Bolivia and I just feel relief that soon I will be able to fully re-patriate.
.-= Andi´s last post … The Sketchbook Project- Week Two =-.
I don’t live in Bolivia – never had the desire to go (MUCH to my Mother’s dismay). We didn’t speak much for awhile because she couldn’t understand why I wasn’t excitedly planning my own Bolivian adventure.
I enjoy visiting Bolivians and observing other people’s Bolivian experiences, but my path in life went in a different direction. I’m sure many questions have been asked about that when I wasn’t around.
I have no plans to go to Bolivia, and don’t see it as a choice. It is just a fact. I’m in my mid thirties and have never had the urge to travel there and don’t see that changing.
What’s strange is that I get the most pressure to go to Bolivia from people who don’t know me. Who meet me in a line at the store or at a party. I wish I handled these situations better. I think, moving forward, I will tell these people to read this post. It states how I feel better than I’ve been able to articulate when under pressure.
THANK YOU.
It looks like a nice place to visit, but I wouldn’t want to live there. It’s just not ever something I planned to do.
Bolivians, on the other hand, can be totally cool. Especially during World Cup. And it’s fun to do the little immersion weekends sometimes, but those have never made me want to move there. It seems like two separate issues to me.
Everyone wants to talk to me about Bolivia these days because I’m 28 and just got remarried. But my husband knew I wasn’t into the Bolivian thing, and eventually everyone else will get tired of asking when we’re going to go.
Strangely, it seems like only the people who really don’t like it there are asking when we’re moving… the ones that really enjoy it just show us their travel journals sometimes and call it a day.
.-= Shannon´s last post … Fire in the Skies audio =-.
I was raised in a desert, which while beautiful in its own exceedingly harsh way, was rather too hard and barren for a little one. So I headed for Bolivia because I wanted to create a different landscape for me and mine.
I have been living in Bolivia for five years now and it is nothing like the Bolivia of my dreams… It is far far more beautiful than I had ever imagined in ways that I didn’t even know how to dream before I lived here.
And, its landscape is far, far more harsh and desolate than the landscape I grew up in, which shocks and frightens me still.
What strikes me now is that there are so many different Bolivias. And so many different ways to get to those different Bolivias. Some look like traditional Bolivians. Some do not. But if we create, we live in a Bolivia.
My only wish is that the different Bolivians would all be able to find more love for themselves to fill the space we would find if we could just jettison the desire for everyone to want to live in our Bolivia.
At first I thought this must be a metaphor for something…but apparently not.
Why Bolivia? Just seems kind of random. Like people really just come up to you and ask are you moving to Boliva? It seems like all the commenters know about this “pull” too (even if they don’t necessarily feel it themselves) but I am completely puzzled. Is it a west coast thing maybe?
I HATE people telling me they’re sorry for me. Now people ask me where I live and I tell them and they say “oh, I’m sorry.” Well I’m NOT! I actually kind of like where I live so you should be happy for me! And even if it wouldn’t be my first choice, I’d rather make the most of it instead of walking around feeling sorry for myself so please don’t help me to do that.
I moved to Bolivia a little more than a year ago. I jumped in feet first, completely absorbing myself in the language and culture, even taking on a new, traditional Bolivian name. While I don’t regret moving to Bolivia and am happy living there, there was a loneliness that came with completely absorbing myself in its traditional lifestyle because it left me feeling less and less like myself.
At first I thought Bolivia was the problem, but it wasn’t. I was. It was when I focused on being there for myself and bringing the complicated, curious person I was before into my little corner of Bolivia that I started to feel more complete and therefor also found a happiness that no visa in my passport could provide.
C and I agreed we’re not heading for Bolivia until we’ve visited a bunch of other countries, first. He does seem pretty focused on when other people we know are heading for Bolivia, so I tease him, “I know you’re not ready to be a resident, but I think you’re desperate to be a tourist!” After all, tourists get to bring noisy, shiny gifts from home to their resident friends and family 🙂
A friend of ours and his wife moved to Bolivia recently. He called the other day, and while it’s nice to hear how wonderful Bolivia is, the conversation got pretty one-sided. Apparently, the food in Bolivia is excellent, though it occasionally gives him indigestion. I had nothing to say, since I’ve never tried it. How’s the food back home? Well, Pizza still tastes like pizza, and burgers still taste like burgers, and he knows what they taste like and they haven’t changed and if he really wanted to, there are a few burger and pizza joints in Bolivia (which aren’t quite the same, but they’re close enough if you have a craving), and he just hasn’t been in the mood for those kinds of food lately, anyway. So there’s just not much I can say about pizza and burgers that he doesn’t know, and he doesn’t really care about the little bit I can say, anyway.
.-= Laura G´s last post … In which I wonder how you found me =-.
This post — and its accompanying comments — is both deeply moving and hilarious. I love the puzzlement, how it can be read in more than one way (as can the comments!). It feels like literature because of the mix of confusion and agreement it sparks, how confounding yet how crystal clear it is. I hope it gets published somewhere someday, since it’s a wonderful new take on an age-old topic.
PS: I love how this piece is in some ways akin to Betty Friedan’s “The Problem that Has No Name” in The Feminine Mystique (http://www.h-net.org/~hst203/documents/friedan1.html). Did you do Metaphor Mousing to come up with the “name?”
PPS: For the record, I live vicariously through those living in Bolivia, but for now, I’m blissfully staying put.
Totally.
The only person who has cared that Bolivia has no pull over me is my sister, who turned to me wide-eyed and said “But I never wanted to go to Bolivia either and now look at me.” I love her little Bolivians like the devil, but still no pull towards Bolivia.
I have lots of friends who live outside Bolivia and we are quite happy. Sometimes my friends who live in Bolivia get all excited about having learned to speak Bolivian and don’t want to speak any other language so we have some difficulty communicating, but I think they are quite happy, too.
I am also very very glad that I am not trying to get to Bolivia and finding myself unable. I imagine that pain must be terrible.
I’ve never really given much thought to moving to Bolivia, other than the fact that I’ve known, from a fairly young age, that I wouldn’t be moving there. Havi, this post is brilliant. Until now, I’ve framed this as a choice, as in, “I’m not a Bolivian by choice.” But it’s not really a choice, is it, unless you feel pulled toward Bolivia?
Sometimes I worry that my husband will want to move to Bolivia. Although he has never shown any outward desire to do so, in many ways, every other aspect of his personality seems to indicate that he would naturally immigrate to Bolivia over the course of time, if it weren’t for me. Unlike me, he speaks fluent Spanish, and doesn’t seem to mind the garishly loud (to me) music and culture of Bolivia. When he sees a llama, he talks to it and feeds it treats. If a llama comes up to me, I hide behind him until it goes away. When I ask him if he thinks he’ll change his mind, he simply says, “If I wanted to move to Bolivia, I wouldn’t have married you.”
I very happily live in Peru. Some people seem to think that I equate Peru with Bolivia, but I don’t. They’re different countries. You can be a citizen of both, or neither. The residents of Peru are small and furry. Like the llamas of Bolivia, they are incredibly loving, yet unlike the llamas, they can entertain themselves perfectly well without me. I can pop back to the United States from time to time knowing that, as long as I’ve left food and water out for the Peruvian creatures, they’ll be just fine. The best thing about Peruvian culture is that you don’t have to justify yourself — Peruvians accept and love you just as you are.
I’m a happy ambassador for Peru, but I realize that not everyone would be happy living there. Some people would be so unhappy living in Peru that they would make life unpleasant for any native Peruvians who might fall under their care. In the same vein, I wish that some of the overly zealous Bolivian ambassadors in my life would realize that not everyone is meant to move to Bolivia.
I always wanted and enjoyed travel and yet I always, always, always took the most outrageous travel insurance to make sure I avoided Bolivia, even on unexpected layovers. I never really understood why and yet I didn’t fight it. If I wanted to travel, travel insurance must always be in place. If my travel companion didn’t want the insurance, we didn’t travel together. Simple as that. I traveled alone a lot and had loads of fun.
Then one night, I was shown Bolivia in a dream. Just this one time, I didn’t buy travel insurance and I wound up headed to Bolivia.
It wasn’t until my trip had embarked that I understood why I had always been so adamant about travel insurance, not because it isn’t a lovely trip. Or because the Bolivians and expats there aren’t wonderful but because when Bolivia’s electro-magnetic field and my electro-magnetic fields combine, there is complete shut down.
I didn’t know this about myself. Suffice it to say my trip there was cut short by necessity. And all other trips there must be avoided. Obviously there was something about the trip I needed to explore (and boy am I exploring it, still… 15 years later).
That’s when I understood. I would not survive the trip to Bolivia and thus I could certainly never live in Bolivia and Bolivia couldn’t live in me.
Bolivia was and continues to be something that I must avoid, if I want to keep breathing. I grieved that for a while only because I saw the itinerary and embarked on the journey. Had I continued my avoidance, I would have also missed a needed change, that truly has awakened the complete me.
I’m all for the people who want to travel there. I’m all for the people who don’t. I’m all for the people who don’t know anything about Bolivia and don’t want to know or admit they don’t, didn’t or even want to go there. I’m all for the people who wind up there by accident. We each live where we live, to learn what we need to learn – if we’re willing to awaken to it.
I respect that.
I love your metaphors. So much. You are complete no matter what stamps are in your passport.
When I was young, I thought I would move to Bolivia. That’s what girls in North Dakota grow up to do. Not so much a choice, simply what your role is.
Then I moved out west and got a Ph.D. in economics. I kind of forgot about ever wanting to move to Bolivia. I probably never actually wanted to move there in the first place.
I guess maybe I am lucky. The women in my professional circles rarely talk about anyone moving to Bolivia. It is a non-issue. If you move there, great. If not, great.
Plus, my sister has been to Bolivia 2 times and is working on her third trip. This keeps my parents happy and not asking me when I’ll be moving there 🙂
.-= Katie Hart´s last post … A Love Letter to the New School Year =-.
Oops forgot to mark the check box to hear more about other’s Bolivian adventures and non-adventures alike.
Moving to Bolivia would have never occurred to me either. I saw all my friends heading that way and I simply didn’t get it.
When I transitioned to female, I felt like something was wrong with me, because I didn’t magickally acquire that Bolivian Pull that everyone talks about. I felt like I wasn’t a “real woman” since I didn’t feel the Bolivian Pull.
When I married Kyeli, I married into some Bolivian heritage, but it was different because I got to skip over all the “We’re moving to Bolivia!” and all the “We’re Bolivia noobs!” hoopla. But she wanted to move back. She and I had some epic arguments about what country to live in.
One day, I chose to let my Bolivian visa lapse. I could never go there again, at least not in the same way. It was hard for me, because I was afraid I might change my mind… although the fact that I might change my mind would have never occurred to me except for the fact that everyone else around me was all “Viva Bolivia!”
Then Kyeli’s Bolivian visa was revoked by the Bolivian government for no apparent reason. Even though she had made peace with not moving to Bolivia, she had still wanted to visit, and now she can no longer even enter the country. She felt betrayed and unfairly treated. Maybe she’ll end up tutoring Bolivian expats who live in the States. Who knows?
I don’t really have an ending to this story, so I’ll just say that “Bolivia” looks really weird after reading it and typing it dozens of times.
.-= Pace Smith´s last post … We’d like to get to know you better =-.