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.
Havi, I so love this. I live happily in Bolivia. But, when I was very young I hated Bolivia. Then I desperately wanted to move there but couldn’t. Then I did move, but only because someone else was forced out of Bolivia and I took her spot. Then later, I found another place in Bolivia.
But, I too have ALWAYS hated the notion of choice. If it was a choice, then every person who wanted to move to Bolivia would move there the second they decided it was really for them, and no one would be there who didn’t know how they wound up in Bolivia. Its not a choice. It’s a thousand choices and luck and a million other things all wrapped up together. And being in Bolivia is great. And living in other countries is great.It’s not a binary thing.
And no one is wrong for whether or not they move. They’re just living their lives.
Holy guacamole – look at all the wonderful stories and the post that encuraged them. Metaphor mouse is feeling extra spunky today.
My story:
My mom headed to Boliva accidently and abruptly. At the time, there was no legal way for her to cancel the flight. She made nice with the natives, but pretty much spent 17 years waiting to move away and reclaim a life that had been interrupted. I think because of the way in which she was displaced, she neither encouraged or discouraged me about the place. Her only advice was to provide me with the tools and knowledge so I didn’t accidently go to Bolivia.
The concept that it’s not a “choice” really resonates with me because Bolivia never appealed to me. I browsed a travel brochure in a waiting room once, and that was the closest to it being a place I considered ever. It’s just not somewhere I’d ever want to go. I don’t speak the language, I don’t understand the culture, the landscape is alien, and I’ve lost so many friends to that place it makes me a little sad. Though I AM glad some of people who go to Bolivia are the smart, funny, creative, inspirational folks that make this world better.
Thank you, Havi, for putting this into words that I can use to try to explain to people why I haven’t been to Bolivia and I don’t want to go. Also so many thanks to the commenter mice for sharing their stories.
I have been keeping up with the comments here. compelled. I feel like part of a gang, finally. It feels like I lost a whole bunch of weight in a blink of an eye. bleepin’ crazy internet [wipes eyes]
I’m 50 and like some of the 40 & > commenter mice, people have stopped asking when I’m going to Bolivia. But when I meet people, first questions always involve Bolivia. I got so tired of having people shoot pity at me (it smells and it stains), that a few years ago I started heading that off at the pass. In the same breath as “nope, never been there” I add “that was totally our plan. we have our own biz, travel the world, and have a herd of rescued critters who need us, plus >20 neph- and nie-llamas.”
I’m making a secret stain-proof cape, made of all these comments. I’m tucking it in my back pocket, and the very next time…instead of justifying and defending myself, I’m going to put on my secret cape and just smile.
Thank you to all who have commented here. You nudged me to a different world.
It’s funny. When I was in high school, my friends always told me I was the “girl least likely to move to Boliva, ever”. Which made me sad, because I’d always wanted to see Bolivia. True, I never ooed and aahed over photos of Bolivia, but I still assumed when I made my own journey, I’d love it, and oo and ah over my own photos/experiences.
I found a traveling companion (I wasn’t keen on going alone … might have if there was no choice) and we came here.
In case you’re wondering why I always wanted to come: I’m really interested in cultural exchange. I’m proud of my culture, and wanted to be able to teach it to Bolivians gradually. I wasn’t so interested in one day a week or occasional cultural exchange.
I like Bolivia (yes, it has it’s share of bad days, like any country). But Bolivia really challenged my feminism, and I find I do need to discuss what happens in Bolivia, from a feminist point of view, even with non-Bolivians. Which may annoy non-Bolivians. But Bolivia had such an impact on me, and so many examples of what I’m trying to say are about Bolivia.
I’m particularly worried about the human rights of Bolivian youngsters, female and male. I think we completely overlook their point of view, because they aren’t articulate in English. I know some Bolivian youngsters have a reputation for being a bit wild, (they aren’t all like that, the ones I know are rather sweet) but even when they are wild, they need to be respected and treated like the human beings they are.
And the whole working outside Bolivia thing is fraught. It doesn’t need to be, it should be possible to work from any country. Changing work expectations would benefit people living in Italy, Peru, wherever. And the work outside home affects female Bolivians so much, whereas there are almost no work Visa problems for male Bolivians. And that’s unfair.
So I sometimes want to talk about these issues, I think they are global issues that need to be discussed with Bolivians and non-Bolivians alike.
I love to travel, but I could never picture myself in Bolivia, even when I was small and everyone said, “of course you’ll go; it’s just a trip that all adults make”
(although that clearly wasn’t true, since I had aunts and uncles who never went). So I kept trying to imagine it – maybe with the right travel partner it could work. In my mid-20s, I found the right travel partner, and he was also ambivalent about Bolivia. We talked about it occasionally, but neither of us felt a sense of urgency. I got tired of answering questions about it. Eventually (and it took years), I looked deep within and realized I had never ever wanted to go to Bolivia. My right partner got his visa revoked some years ago, which was such an amazing relief. And now I’m in my mid-40s, and my visa is being revoked, which requires some adjustment. But both of us look at our lives and see that the parts we love best would not have been possible if we’d taken that trip. So we don’t regret our choices to avoid Bolivia. Luckily many of our friends are also non-Bolivians, but it is hard to meet new non-Bolivians. I’m somewhat introverted, living in a new place where I know few people, and I’m quite socially isolated. But I also don’t think being Bolivian would’ve changed any of that for the better.
.-= Laiima´s last post … rose path meander =-.
This one of the most wonderful things I’ve read about me and my relationship with Bolivia. I’m almost 36 now and relieved that my mum’s finally stopped pleading with me: “don’t forget to move to Bolivia”. Though I do feel the pressure sometimes, what with so many people around me heading over there at the moment.
The metaphor made me laugh out loud though, becuase by some hilarious coincidence I’m actually seriously thinking about moving to …. er, Bolivia. No, I mean actually going there, non-metaphorically speaking hahaha
I moved to Bolivia when I was 24 and single. My family were a bit shocked but they liked the postcards I sent them and they adored the little llama I wound up with.
Wow, what a huge culture shock, Bolivia was! I’d always thought I’d wind up in Bolvia some day but I hadn’t expected to do it by accidentally getting on the wrong plane. At first, everything was so hard and I thought perhaps I’d made a big mistake. I cried a lot because I didn’t understand the language or the culture and little llamas take a lot of getting used to. I stuck it out and eventually it all got a bit easier. But truthfully, I’ve always felt like a bit of a stranger here, even though I do enjoy the company of llamas.
In my thirties I desperately longed to move deeper into Bolivia. I hungered for it. I dreamt about it. But one of my two travel companions just wasn’t interested: indeed, almost everything about the thought of a deeper journey into Bolivia disturbed her and she knew it would be unbearable to come along with me. I couldn’t bear a life without her and since I already had one delightful llama to play with, I decided to walk away from that haunting thought of deeper Bolivia.
I’ve only got a couple more years here in Bolivia before my llama heads out into the world. I don’t regret the way it all turned out but I do still sometimes dream of newborn llamas.
.-= Kirsty Hall´s last post … Name my product! =-.
Havi, a belated thank you for this totally brilliant post that I missed last week because of my internet-free holiday. I keep re-reading it and gradually go through the comments. I can have the cutest little Bolivian ever on my lap and still don’t feel any pull towards his country.
I have friends who are in Bolivia who totally get me but I hate the shoes that keep being thrown at me by other people and which I find fear-inducing at times (“if you don’t go to Bolivia you will feel terribly sad and lonely when you are 50 / 60 / 70…”). My aunt even said to me once very sternly that not going to Bolivia simply cannot be an option. It has always been my option though and I have realized through your post that it really doesn’t have anything to do with choice, it is just how it has evolved for me in a natural way that I have never really questioned and that has never made me feel uncomfortable – it is just pressure from society that keeps insinuating that not going to Bolivia is not a good way to live and that brings up questions that otherwise I wouldn’t really deal with.
I’m afraid I will be dragged to Bolivia kicking and screaming like a Bolivian by a dear dear man whose been there and wants me to share it with him… dammit. Sheesh do we have to share everything? I mean, I don’t share your toothbrush, do I have to share your Bolivian? I like it when my dog sleeps on the bed with us. I don’t even want the Bolivian in my room. And I swear, are Bolivians the absolute most needy of all nationalities? And why the heck are they so hyper and talkative and buttinski and nosey and and and…sigh… mildly entertaining…but sheesh… can’t they come with a timer? I like that idea…. ding!…power off. I think I’ll see if the dear dear man will install one.
Well, I live in Bolivia, and most of the time I like Bolivia…except for when I long for the life I had before I moved to Bolivia…but that’s okay, because I’m muddling along, doing the best I can here in Bolivia. But there is something I’ve learned since coming to Bolivia–so many people are STILL not satisfied with how you’re living in Bolivia. It’s not enough to live in Bolivia–everyone’s got an opinion about which part of Bolivia you ought to be living in, and wanting to know why are you living that instead of this Bolivia–because where you’re at is certainly NOT the real Bolivia. You think you know Bolivia? You have no clue what the real Bolivia is like. You’re not dedicated enough–you haven’t learned the language, experienced the culture, lived as the people of Bolivia live–you don’t truly live in Bolivia–you’re a poser.
It just goes on and on.
So I don’t care anymore who lives in Bolivia. It’s not possible to please everyone–not even the Bolivians.
.-= Karen´s last post … So Long- Summer =-.
AMAZING post Havi, and incredible comments!
I’ve never had much interest in Bolivia, but have become slightly less adamant about NEVER EVER going. My traveling companion and I don’t seem particularly suited to this particular trip, and there’s still so many other countries we want to visit first. I was expecting the deep pull to go by now, but it hasn’t happened.
I’m 31 and do worry that I will wake up one day after it’s too late to go and really regret not going…. I take comfort that even if it becomes too late to take the traditional 9 month cruise, there are always other less-traditional travel options.
My biggest problem is that my mom and my grandma are both desperate to move to the grand mountains of Bolivia, but they need me to move to Bolivia first in order to sponsor them. I feel bad that they can’t go if I don’t. They both visit the grand Bolivian mountainside as often as possible, but it is apparently not the same as living there full-time. I love them and want them to be happy, but not if it involves me being miserable in Bolivia, ya know?
A really high high-five for you…
I love this so much. My experience has been a lot like Maryann’s — I love her “I’ve never felt moved to become an astronaut, either.” It just wasn’t a Thing for me.
Every year or so my husband or I would say “Do you want to move to Bolivia? Because we can make that work, if you want to.” And the other one would say “Nope. I’m good. But let me know if *you* want to move to Bolivia. Because I’m open to it.” (Or, more amusingly, after Unpleasant Interactions with Bolivians, “So — wanna move to Bolivia yet?” “Hell no.”)
We’re both 50 now, so odds are against a sudden relocation. You know, it’s funny, but most of my female college friends didn’t go to Bolivia either. We were a science-and-engineering crowd. Hmm. Possibly an actual breed apart? Maybe I really am a space alien!
I do get a little irked that we non-Bolivians so often feel the need to immediately say “But I LOVE Bolivians, myself, SO much.” Frankly — is this racist? — they can be a little uncivilized. What with all the pooping. And discussion of pooping. Not that I don’t LOVE Bolivians, myself. SO much.
My wife and I wanted to move to Bolivia when we first got married, but after a few months together with our dog and cat (the latter of whom we adopted after two weeks of marriage), we realized that we were content where we were, and that moving to Bolivia didn’t sound as appealing as the other options that were open to us.
It wasn’t really a “choice”, though. We didn’t choose to want to move to Bolivia, and we didn’t choose to not want to move to Bolivia. It was just that one day we wanted it and one day we didn’t… the only “choice” was to do what we wanted, instead of move to Bolivia because other people thought we should.
.-= Matt Smyczynski´s last post … advice for potential guitarists =-.
Thank you for this, Havi. It reminds me of what gays and lesbians were struggling with 30 years ago (and why we now say “sexual orientation” instead of “sexual preference”).
If you are ever inclined to write more, I would love to read your thoughts on dealing with people who think that throwing shoes will get you to “give up” and move to Bolivia. It’s really hard to defend ourselves because so few people understand that it’s *not* a choice.
I live in Bolivia. I’ve lived in Bolivia since I met my travelling companion who already had a lovely little llama come and live with us for half of each week, and then eight years later another little llama snuck into our tent and snuggled in and made himself at home too.
Sometimes I resent having let him stay, or rather, having let my travelling companion convince me that once a llama has snuck into your tent you HAVE to keep it or else you will damage your travelling partnership irreparably (not OUR specific partnership, just IN PRINCIPLE) and we’d inevitibly set off in different directions.
And I didn’t want to go travelling alone because I didn’t think my travelling companion really KNEW what a good travelling companion I was and still just needed some time to see me in action and be convinced of how awesome I am to travel with and THEN he’d be all “oh wow you’re the best freaking travel companion the world has ever seen, let me carry your backpack for you, I’m so sorry I’ve never noticed how heavy your backpack was, oh and you’ve been carrying the kettle as well, sorry, would you like a cup of tea?”….
Of course he says his backpack is heavier and I should be offering to carry more and that is never a fun argument to have.
We’re still travelling together but its still really hard a lot of the time. When we STOP and just HANG OUT and look at the scenery and chat we get along better than I can ever imagine two people getting along, but the actual hiking, and setting up camp, and gathering local foodstuffs etc is never a very easy or coordinated affair.
In the end I got chatting to someone else who was hiking along the same road and asked him if he’d help me carry my backpack and then they offered to carry my backpack forever and even though I’m not in love with this other traveller I think I really want to set off exploring with him.
But then when my travelling companion overheard this he instantly turned around and started saying all the stuff I’ve been longing to hear about what a good travelling companion I am and how he wants to carry my backpack and stuff and how sorry he is but I just don’t know whether to believe him anymore.
But really, I promised to FORSAKE ALL OTHER travelling companions and we do have two llamas to think about.
So I don’t know what to do.
I mean, I love my little llama so freaking much it hurts and I feel ridiculously unworthy of his amazing capacity for love and fun and joy and underqualified to be shepherding him through Bolivia.
I’m sure Bolivia is easier to travel in than I’ve known it to be, but apart from the hours in the middle of the night when I get to stop and just play with my llama my experience of living here has been really hard.
So…. isolation and completeness? I have five people to consider in my future travel plans with and I feel ridiculously lonely even though they all love me. Completeness? I’ve lost my sense of it, because it requires a fundamental recognition of the Self and my sense of that is buried at the moment in confusion and guilt and shame and anger and fear and longing and hope and not having any sort of map for this particularly weird part of the landscape.
Bolivia is great. But try to move there only once you’ve got a really strong grip on your own sense of who you are. Otherwise you end up responsible for llamas and confusing their wellbeing and your own and the boundaries get all mucky and it hurts like hell.
Sorry. This comment is way off topic.
Bolivia is an AWESOME metaphor. Havi, you rock.
First of all this post is a wonderful thing. I don’t have time to read all the comments right now, but I surely will. I am so happy to read something about Bolivia that doesn’t make me upset, for once. In the meantime, I think I have enough time to share my experience.
When I was around 16, I really wanted to go to Bolivia. I thought about my future life there as the delightful reward for my struggles. I read tour guides, but also I just felt a natural, instinctual comfort with the way of life there. I spent a lot of time working with Bolivians, etc. I really think, based on all my experiences of those days, that if I had moved to Bolivia then, I would have been a model citizen.
But white American New England bourgeois girls are not supposed to move to Bolivia at such a young age. I never even considered it. I wanted to go, but going at that age was outside of the realm of thought. So I never did. And as time went on, Bolivia lost its allure to me. My sister went, and I helped her with everything, I went down there and housesat for her, and in some sense I felt like I’d already been there, it wasn’t a new adventure anymore. And there’s so much else to do in the world.
I don’t regret not being there now. But I am annoyed that I was prevented from going by just the forces that are always pushing me to go now. If I had moved there then, probably I’m naive, but I think that by now, 15 years later, I would be able to go somewhere else.
It’s never really been a choice. When I was 16 I would no sooner have moved than I would have killed a man, and now I would never even think about it if it weren’t for other people asking about it. When I was 5 I wanted to be an inventor, and by the time I was 10 I didn’t, but I never “changed my mind”, I just lost interest. For some reason, nobody asks me why I’m not a scientist yet, or how I came to that “deeply personal decision” blah blah blah.
Oh, I love this post! I’m 37, and I grew up believing that I would go to Bolivia someday. Not because I really wanted to particularly, but because – well, that’s what everyone does, isn’t it? It’s right there on the itinerary: high school, college, meet a traveling partner, go to Bolivia.
Besides, I only knew one person who didn’t go to Bolivia, and that was my aunt. You know, that crazy aunt every family has, who regrets never moving to Bolivia herself so instead takes it upon herself to tell everyone else how to live their Bolivian lives? Yeah. I didn’t want to be her.
But then, I took a look at my parents’ lives, and realized that, well – they really weren’t so happy in Bolivia, either. They said they were, but deep down? They both seemed to deeply regret the move. And I feared that I would end up deeply regretting the move myself, and end up making any Bolivians in my care unhappy. So I just kept traveling in my circles, treading water.
Then I hit 29, and OMG did I ever want to go to Bolivia, like, yesterday!! But my travel partner was the kind who would blow all the money we’d set aside for the plane ticket on gadgets, and I knew that I didn’t want to travel with him, but neither did I want to go on my own. Then I realized that I wanted to go to Graduate Schoolandia, and that was on the opposite side of the world as Bolivia, so I would have to make a choice – and I chose Schoolandia, and wondered for a while if I’d made the right choice.
But I’ve since traveled the world and lived in many other countries besides Bolivia, and found that they’re wonderful places that I’d like to spend more time in. Then I met my traveling partner, who is equally curious about spending time in countries other than Bolivia, and I’ve met fabulous, happy, fulfilled friends of all ages who’ve never been and have no desire to go to Bolivia – and they’re nothing like my aunt! I suddenly realized, in my mid-late 30s, that it *is* possible to live a good life outside of Bolivia.
So now I’m quite happy to live in my own land, and travel, and drop by and visit friends and family in Bolivia. My poor mother – who grew up demanding that I never, ever even think of going to Bolivia without all of the proper paperwork, i’s dotted, t’s crossed – is now begging and pleading with me to go by any means possible. But it’s not going to happen, and I’m happy with that.
Thank you SO SO SO much for writing this post. I have dealt with criticism from my mother for YEARS concerning the fact that I have never wanted to move to Bolivia. I considered it for maybe five seconds, but I soon realized that the only reason I was even considering it was because it was being drilled into my head that moving to Bolivia was something that ALL WOMEN HAD TO DO. She also gave me the “When you’re older you’ll want to move to Bolivia” speech, and even though I’m only 21, I know for a fact that I would never want to do so. I have never felt drawn to Bolivia, not without outside provocation or force. My life’s desires have nothing to do with Bolivia, and I will be perfectly happy in life without ever moving there.
Thank you.
I have tried to understand Bolivia for the sake of my friends who moved there or wanted to. I have failed, and it has felt like failure.
Even thought I’m happy without Bolivia, and I’m right, for me.
I don’t agree with the assertion that the whole culture supports one “choice” over the other. Move to Bolivia, and some of your old friends will suddenly drop you. They’ll tell you your new friends are not welcome, sight unseen, or badmouth them to your face. Some people will act like you aren’t even there, while others will come up and start offering personal questions and unsolicited advice. Some will tell you that you have ruined your life and everyone else’s, because Bolivia is such a drain on the global ecology that nobody else’s choices matter, apparently. Nobody will tell your story, in literature, movies, or TV, except as comedy. Characters like you will only appear as antagonists or figures of fun.
Maybe the real problem isn’t whether a woman moves to Bolivia or not, but whether or not she’s a woman. That is, if you are female, people automatically assume it’s ok to mind your business. People, including other women.
Do you think we could stop doing that to each other?
I’m one of the “lucky” ones for whom the decision not to go to Bolivia was a choice. When I was a young girl, I was often sent for vacation there. I had two younger siblings and my mom wasn’t able to spend as much time in Bolivia as she had wanted. But we were of a socio-religious set that indicated all women ultimately desired and would be required to go to Bolivia, so it was OK to let your “eldest” daughter visit, even when she was quite young. By the time I was about 11 I had tired of Bolivia and knew it wasn’t for me. Other than sometimes stopping there for a little bit of extra cash, I stayed away. I’ve been scrupulous about avoiding travel sites when vulnerable, because frankly, even just *getting* to Bolivia terrifies me. As it becomes less and less likely that I might wind up accidentally in Bolivia, I begin to wonder if I might not have hated it less as an adult, with the means and authority to go where I wanted in Bolivia – to travel in my own way, to actually become a Citizen – rather than to only experience the watered-down temporary Bolivian hostel us young Bolivia visitors were relegated to. Certainly my friends who are living in Bolivia are enjoying themselves a great deal and seem to make the most of it. I like hearing from them about Bolivia, mostly because they can always put their experience into the context of the greater world. And how sad it would be if they never got to Bolivia! I think it would make South America a lesser place if they had never arrived there.
As I get closer to no longer being allowed Citizenship in Bolivia, I become more ambivalent, but still don’t regret not going to Bolivia – I have so many other places I’ve always wanted to visit that no longer being vehemently anti-Bolivia does not make me immediately book a trip. I’m busy doing other things.
I… Okay.
Once upon a time, I wanted to move to Bolivia.
Hell, I even moved to Panama with a guy I fell in love with on the mutual assumption/belief that we would, eventually, settle further south.
But (can I even do this and keep the metaphor intact?) it didn’t go so well.
The guy I was in love with, it turned out, had wanted our stop in Panama to be a brief one. A couple of months at most. Whereas I’d figured we’d be there for years, still doing a lot of the things we did up north, getting our Panama citizenship in order, setting ourselves up, and maybe getting to know people who were already in Bolivia so that we could visit them regularly and get a feel for life in SA.
He pressured me – a lot – to start packing, and really didn’t like the long-distance bills I was racking up talking on the phone with my friends – most of whom were still quite happily in my country-of-origin (although some were in Panama with us, and one or two were on their way to Bolivia).
He once asked me what I’d do if I found myself accidentally on a plane headed for Cochabamba. He didn’t like my answer, which more or less involved hijacking the flight and turning around, whether he liked it or not.
Oh, for a while, I still believe I wanted to move to Bolivia. Just, y’know, not yet.
But the arguments we were having about it, and the realization that I was terribly lonely and increasingly culture-shocked in Panama and, on top of this, was thinking that perhaps I shouldn’t have moved to Panama at nearly so inexperienced an age, or with the person I’d moved with…
I tried to negotiate something that would work.
I suggested that, provided I could also keep a house in Panama with someone else, and make frequent trips back north on my own, I’d be okay with moving to Bolivia with him.
Haha. No dice.
Long-story-short, I moved the hell back north, and have never been happier.
Last I heard, he’d swung by the states for a short period of time, but has since moved back to Panama with someone new. Whether they end up moving to Bolivia or not isn’t really something I think about.
As for myself…
I’ve discovered that I only really daydream about moving to Bolivia when I start thinking about permanence with the people with-whom I’ve agreed to never-move-to-panama (although possibly the EU might be acceptable, given the multi-country passports they have), let alone Bolivia.
Ten years ago, I wanted BADLY to move to Bolivia. But I think a lot of that had to do with the idea that I probably wouldn’t move to Bolivia without a stop-over in Panama first and, additionally… Honestly, from here it looks like everyone who decides “Bolivia! That’s where I’m going!” they love it. They find such happiness and completeness there.
And I’d been taught all my life to assume that “completeness” meant,/i> Panama, meant setting up house in Bolivia.
And I had so little sense of self, so little understanding of what a whole “me” looked like, that I was using Bolivia, and everything that I assumed came with it (the good stuff and the bad stuff), as a place-holder for what I needed to be complete.
Which, as it turns out, doesn’t look anything like Bolivia.
I need my winter to happen in December-January-February-March. And I never did get the hang of speaking Spanish.
I know I’m much happier here, and intend to stay here.
Yeah, sometimes there’s a little bit of regret for What Might Have Been.
But a lot of that, I put down to having been culturally indoctrinated to believe that (1) Bolivia = Permanence, (2) Once a woman has moved to Bolivia, her entire life falls into place, and (3) family only counts as family if it’s built on Bolivian soil, according to the Bolivian model.
I mean, most of my social circles are made up of people who, historically, have been refused entry at the Bolivian border (although it’s been easier for us to get into Bolivia than Panama, I’ll grant you that) and who are also, individually, more concerned with living an independent, artistic life which, really, is hard to do once one has moved to Bolivia. Still possible. But much harder.
Consequently, few of us are considering Bolivia all that much. Which definitely helps cut down on the social pressure to pack up and move. Similarly, due to the historical tendency for People Like Me to be classified as unfit for Bolivian citizenship, people go “Oh! You’re from *Canada*.” And mostly assume I’m never going to move.
It’s kind of a relief. (Seriously. When I was in Panama? My various relatives (old and new) kept joking about when we were going to get our plane tickets. It was actually really uncomfortable. Go figure. :-P)
Don’t get me wrong.
I adore my friends who have moved there and delight in visiting them, eating the food and checking out the culture.
But I find that, for me, Bolivia is more of a personal metaphor for desired permanence than an actual destination.
And the more I understand myself, the more complete I feel and the better I understand the shape of the bits I have yet to find… the less my reality resembles Bolivia and the more it resembles the life I’m living now.
I’m one of the people who really wants to go to Bolivia, and who’s finding it complicated. I can’t catch a non-stop flight with my prefered travel partner, so we have to find other people to go in on a ticket with us, and probably take a ship or hire a private plane.
It’s important to me that going to Bolivia is a choice, but not in the way you’re using the word. It doesn’t have to be a strongly considered choice–going or not going to Bolivia doesn’t need to be an agonizing decision or central to one’s identity. There are so many things that can be done in any country, that may be more important or difficult choices.
But there was a time when almost every woman was forced to go to Bolivia. At a certain age, you would get handed a ticket and shoved in line, and only a few had a medical excuse to avoid travel or found a way to sneak off the plane. And when people see me hustling for a ticket, it’s very important to me that they know I’m *not* in favor of going back to the old system. And when I finally get to Bolivia, I want people on the street there to assume that I really want to be there and love the country.
So that’s what supporting your choice means to me–not that it has to be central to your identity not to be Bolivian, or that you had to stay up late wracking your brain about the pros and cons of emigration. Just that, if you didn’t want to go, you didn’t have to.
.-= R. Emrys´s last post … Letter Sent to Wiscon Con Committee =-.
I don’t live in Bolivia either. Never been. Never even visited. Never considered visiting.
Insofar as choice is concerned, I feel I choose not to live in Bolivia in the same way that I choose not to gamble or hit myself on the head with a hammer. I support other people’s right to live in Bolivia. Hell, in a few cases, I even endorse a person’s right to live in Bolivia. Just ain’t for me.
In other words: what you said. I guess I’m lucky, though. I’ve only ever caught grief about it from one or two people, neither of whose opinions rank very high in my esteem. If I could, I would offer you my apparent immunity from evangelism and condolences.
Though I never felt any particular longing to go to Bolivia, it felt like a benediction when one of the first things my mother in law said when she realized her son and I were in love and contemplating a life together, was, “You’re not planning to go to Bolivia, are you?” I fell in love with her, too, right then. I occasionally wonder what life is like in Bolivia, and some people I’ve seen there seem so happy and content and settled that I think for a second that I want to apply for my passport, but then I realize that I want the feeling of being settled, not that I want to be in Bolivia. The rest of the world is waiting for me to go and see it.
I love this metaphor. I tried to want to go to Bolivia when I was married in my 20s; it turned out to be for the best that I never made the trip, however, as I was very definitely married to the wrong person and have since rethought the issue.
I have chosen not to go to Bolivia, after a lot of thought and consideration and self-searching. I never wanted to go to Bolivia as a child, and was puzzled by the notion that others could be so sure they did want to go there that they were already planning their trips; choosing not to go to Bolivia is being true to myself, I now believe, and my 20something self was trying to fit into the societal mould that told me I should want to be Bolivia-bound.
I like people who have gone to Bolivia, and am thrilled for them when it’s a dearly wanted dream fulfilled, but it’s not right for me to go there myself.
Havi–this post has been made a Particle on Making Light! http://nielsenhayden.com/makinglight/
I grew up being told that people who never moved to Bolivia were destined to remain shallow, superficial and selfish. I had an aunt who never moved to Bolivia, never found a travelling companion and by all appearances seemed pretty OK with that…but her choice to stay outside Bolivia seemed to provoke a lot of judgement, and a special brand of acidic ‘sympathy’. Let’s call that acidic sympathy ‘condemnation’. The street I grew up on in Bolivia had a lot of churches on it. Strangely, there were no churches around before we all moved to Bolivia.
My own parents had a rough and difficult journey to Bolivia that lasted for about 4 years, and it was only by a miracle akin to Jesus walking on water that their boat even pulled into the harbour at Bolivia. Because of her own problems getting to Bolivia, my mother has always encouraged me and my younger sister to set off for Bolivia at a reasonably early age, although never without a travelling companion, and never without having secured a permanent commitment from said travelling companion. My younger sister has been happy to abide by the rules and regulations set out in our well-meaning corner of Bolivia, but I’ve found myself reviewing the legislation many times, scratching my head and saying to myself, ‘Huh? This just doesn’t make any sense…’
It seems the older I get, the more I want to delay moving to Bolivia, even if that may mean never moving there at all. Having just turned 30, I’ve had a few people comment that I’ll likely start yearning to move to Bolivia very soon. Maybe I will. I don’t know. I do know that I’ll regret it if I move to Bolivia at the expense of learning and experiencing everything I can about the Middle East first.
The only thing I’m even semi-sure of is that I’d like a travelling companion. Not a travelling companion who keeps asking, ‘Are we going to Bolivia soon? Now? Now? How about now?’ or keeps looking over my shoulder at Bolivia in the distance, but a travelling companion who simply thinks I am enough, Bolivia or no.
.-= Nicole Marree´s last post … Snowball habits =-.
*applause*
I am older than you and have never felt the pull to move either. I used to get angry at all the condescending little remarks and judgments, but now that I’m over 40, people seem not to expect me to move anymore. Also, I’ve been lucky enough to have friends who have moved to Bolivia who still love me and can talk about things other than Bolivia and have no issues with the fact that I never wanted to move there.
Terrific job writing this!
I got it right off, because sometimes you are on your way and you get rerouted to Holland.
http://www.our-kids.org/Archives/Holland.html
.-= Miss Cellania´s last post … Shopping for a Spouse =-.
Statistically speaking, very few of us actually choose to move to Bolivia. More often we win a free trip to Bolivia at an unexpected time. That catch, of course, is that the trip includes only a one-way ticket.
So there really is a choice here. Just not the one people ostensibly talk about.
The real choice is whether to cancel the trip, or fulfil some of the requirements to validate the trip and then give it to someone else. So, it’s more like Bolivia chooses you (or someone like you.)
This is how I’ve understood the use of the rubric “choice” in this context.
Of course, many of us are asked early on if we would like to move there, and most of the time a non-committal answer is all that is required; I mean, everyone knows Bolivia will always be there if you want to go.
But, we are exposed to the idea of moving there early on.
I myself had pretty much made up my mind that Bolivia just wasn’t for me, for various reasons. Moving there was not high on our list of things to do, but of course the cosmic joke is that the more content you are with your current locale the greater the chance (barring immigration issues that some folks have) of winning that free one-way trip to Bolivia.
So, having moved to Bolivia, I can concur that it was not so much a choice as it was a trip taken; suddenly moving to Bolivia became an easy thing to do, and the other choices (because, of course, there is always a choice) seemed more radical than accepting that free trip.
I think the hardest part of being in Bolivia for me is being around Bolivians who think that the only country I should be interested in is Bolivia, and the people not in Bolivia who assume because I am there I am not interested in, Greece, say. Or Czechoslovakia.
I once had a woman who, upon hearing I was a Bolivian, sniffed “I could never move there!” and turn on her heel and walk away. Which was a shame, because up to that point we had been having a lovely conversation about Fiji.
This was a wonderful post – made it really easy to put my feelings into thoughts and my thoughts into words. Such beautiful writing…
I never wanted to go to Bolivia when I was young. I had a vague idea that Bolivia existed, and that people must go there sometimes otherwise it would be empty, but I never bothered to consider thinking about it myself.
Now i have a partner and he is really eager to go to Bolivia, and I’ve started thinking about it, and considering it, and I think I’ll quite enjoy it there, although i know it will be strange and scary and will take us a while to settle in.
My mum does not want me to go. She’s worried I won’t be able to find work while I’m out there. She’s worried that I’ll forget all my dreams and hopes and just settle down as a good Bolivian.
I’m both excited and terrified about going now, but it’s a good few years in the future. Currently me and my partner are saving up because apparently BOlivia is not cheap.
.-= Lab Rat´s last post … Throat bacteria that destroy invaders =-.
Thank you. Just thank you.
Also, I actively did not want to go to Bolivia and then I found out that I can”t. What bothers me about not being able to go to Bolivia is not being unable to migrate but that people imply, in their conversations with me, that I am less of a person, less of a partner, less of a citizen…
As a 33-year-old man who is yet to seriously consider the Bolivia Tourism brochure (or even considered asking about it at the travel agent), I’m immensely grateful for this post (and its comments). It boils down to the difference between:
– decide not to
– not decide to
Far more eloquently put by the author. Next time I get a cabbie like I had the other day trying to convince me otherwise, I’ll hand him this URL.
Thanks. A lot.
Can I be the 191st person to tell you that this is an amazing essay? I will probably point to it at Body Impolitic in the next few days.
I was linked over here from Shakesville. Such a fantastic metaphor, thank you. My feelings on the matter are somewhat rare, I think. I love Bolivians, intensely, and would love to *be* in Bolivia, but the immigration process feels entirely not worth it. If there were an instant teleport to Bolivia, I’d be first in line.
This is further complicated by the fact that my wife wants desperately to move there herself, but her passport will never be approved. It brings her daily pain and anguish that this can never be. I frequently find myself thinking that, if I could only give her my completely valid passport, we could both be happy. I sometimes wonder if I should take one for the team, suck it up and go, but would that make her feel even worse, now that I get to be in this place she so wants to be with every fiber of her being? I don’t know.
Thank you so much for inspiring this thought process for me, and for the other commenters for your contributions as well. <3
Almost exactly two years ago I bought my ticket to Bolivia – and canceled the trip very soon after. That was an easy choice to make and one I’d make again just as easily. I don’t really care for Bolivia, even short visits. I’ve noticed I avoid Bolivians, like maybe Bolivia is contageous and catching.
But will I stay away from Bolivia forever? Maybe someday I’ll want it and be able to make it work. Maybe not. I dunno. We’ll see.
.-= Cate´s last post … Romance Recap- Perfect =-.
I was recently talking about Bolivia with my best friend. She and her SO are making a permanent arrangement out of their relationship and they want to go to Bolivia someday. She didn’t mention when and I didn’t push because they’ll let me know when they take the trip (she was forced to cancel a trip to Bolivia when we were in college and it was very, very hard for her). And I will be super happy for them when they head off to Bolivia because I love Bolivians. Seriously. Honest to goodness, deep down love. I am actually going back to school so that I can get a degree and teach Bolivians. But I don’t really want to live in Bolivia. I have no real reasons, I just don’t want to go. It’s exactly what you mentioned, I didn’t make a choice because I didn’t realize that I needed to.
And I think I’ve been lucky in a lot of ways when it comes to where I live and who I associate with. My family (aside from my very elderly, senile Jewish grandmother) has never pressured me about going to Bolivia. My friends could care less one way or another as some have been to Bolivia, some have not, some want to go, others went once and have sworn that it is the only time they will ever go (one even canceled her passport so she can’t go again) and some are considering Bolivians without the actual trip (my folks never went to Bolivia cause my mom was unable to get a passport, so I have lots of info on that particular endeavor).
I’ve read through so many of the comments and have found so many interesting stories: people who want but can’t get to Bolivia, people in Bolivia and loving it, people who got to Bolivia after their traveling companion but falling in love with being there, those who don’t want to go to Bolivia, people whose trip got canceled, people who are lonely in Bolivia and more. It’s fantastic to see the warm and open and honest communication that is so frequently lost in the digital world. This was a wonderful post and I’m glad you were able to so eloquently express some of the same ideas that I have rolling around in my head.
I had always heard that when I got older I would change my mind and develop a desire to move to Bolivia. And in fact, that happened, but my desire to move lasted about a year, and then I went back to feeling ambivalent about it. Yeah, no one ever seems to acknowledge that possibility, that even if this supposedly biologically imperative desire does occur, it may not be all that strong or permanent. I know I will live a happy life if I never see Bolivia, but if the desire to go ever returns and sticks, I’d be up for that too.
I’m currently on the slow boat to Bolivia, and arriving at this mystical place in May is, quite frankly, freaking me out. The voyage is long and hard and only Cheezits can bring me solace, and there is a part of me that wonders if I really want to emigrate, and if I’m ready for it. My husband is born to be Bolivian. Part of me feels like I’m emigrating because it’s what I’m supposed to do. My mother never got to visit Bolivia herself, just vicariously through a travel agent, so part of me wonders if I’m doing this for her.
I’m so glad that for the stories here, about Bolivians and Non-Bolivians. That it’s okay to feel the way I feel — that it’s okay to have *any* opinion of Bolivia, because it’s such a complex place that we don’t *have* to visit. I’m torn about Bolivia, especially since I don’t know if I’ll be able to complete my studies as an international student in Bolivia, but I have to try. Because, once you’re on the boat, you really can’t go back, and even though I planned this trip for a long time, I’m glad to know that it’s okay to second-guess myself.
Or I could always blame it on the sea-sickness. I hope I hit smoother waters soon.
I’m not sure how I’m feeling about moving to Bolivia. I’ve never had that deep pull myself to move there, but in the absence of nagging relatives and the TV and news articles, I don’t have any particular revulsion against living there (all the messages saying that you! must! move! to! Bolivia! OR ELSE! sort of makes me dig my heels in and say No, I don’t want to). The trip on the other hand? Nooooo thank you!
My travelling companion and I are of the age where our friends are moving to Bolivia or beginning to plan their trips. I don’t mind llamas–indeed, I’m rather fond of the ones that my friends have–but I find the thought of having my own, of packing up everything and moving, to be simply terrifying.
I know my companion has started to think about maybe moving, and I know he’d make a great Bolivian, so I feel guilty that the thought of the trip mostly inspires fear. And it’s not like once you move to Bolivia, that you can move right back if you decide that you made a mistake, that you really don’t like llamas after all and the weather is terrible and you’d really rather just move back home and pretend the move never happened. It’s a permanent decision–even when you can leave Bolivia, you still will have been marked and changed because you went.
I always thought I’d move to Bolivia. Maybe get a really big place there. But after a divorce and a long single hood before love came back to my life, I never went. I didnt want to go by myself and I never met another to go with until it was too late. Around age 40 I saw the ultimatum: either move to Bolivia now or dont ever. So I chose to stay and not go to Bolivia. I sometimes wonder what would have happened if I did. But I like my life here, easy, simple and based on my desires. I will not be moving to Bolivia and I am content with that.