Laguna Hedionda.

Early in the second day of the tour of the Uyuni region, this volcano was visible for much of the trip.

Taken 23 July, 2009.

The ground on the salt flats of the Uyuni in Bolivia is just a comparatively thin layer of earth crust over water. Gas emissions break through the salty crust and create these shapes which stretch out far into the horizon.

• Final Exam and Research paper for Church History I
• Tested Positive for Typhoid and Paratyphoid
• Completed paperwork and deliveries to a) get a new passport and b) not go to jail
• Staton’s Quince
• Katherine Returned to the States
• Discovered that not only is my backup drive fried, but I also seem to not have my data (read: school papers) on my laptop drive, either (read: panic).

I woke up today thinking that Staton had been 15 and Katherine had been in the States for at least two weeks. But no, just a few days.

Note for future reference: research papers on historical subjects, like, say, medieval scholasticism, are murder when one has no access to a physical library. JSTOR is lovely and all, but, man. I miss books.

Rita was waiting at the office. We drove to Immigration. Her contact was most decidedly not available. They have lost my passport entirely.

Essentially, I have no passport but I am in a foreign country.

Immigration is indicating that they understand that I legally hired someone to do my paperwork and that that person did not do said paperwork. Everyone is in a quandary: I have no passport and no visa, Rita has to pay approx. $2000+ out of her pocket to recoup losses, and the immigration office cannot verify when I entered the country of Bolivia in order to properly fine Rita. Score.

We are going back tomorrow morning and will be accompanied by the regional American Consul who will attempt to buy me more time while the U.S. provides me with a new passport.

But no jail. Theoretically.

Our lack of enthusiasm combined with our insufficient ID inspired the two officers to morph into four as they led us deeper into the terminal.

“Where are your passports?”

“Where are you from?”

“What are you doing here?”

“Why are you in Bolivia?”

I answered their questions. I asked to be able to look for my father, who was somewhere in the bus terminal looking for us. This was ignored, beyond:

“Who is your father?”

“Why is he here?”

I rattled off the names and identification numbers of both my parents, as well as our address. Nothing. I told them repeatedly, “I LIVE in Cochabamba. This is my home. My address is…!” They ignored me.

Two or three other officers walked up behind us. Katherine and I were surrounded.

They handed me a paper to sign.

“What is this?”

“It says that we have your documents.”

“What happens if I sign it?”

“You can walk normally ['caminar normal'] until Monday morning when you show us your other documents. Then you can have these back.”

We stalled, trying to get  more answers from them. Nothing. Just old questions.

“How long have you been in Bolivia?”

Answering their questions had thus far done nothing, so I tried, “I’m sorry, I don’t understand much Spanish.”

The lead officer snorted. He told the others, “They have no papers. They’re Illegal.”

“What do you think I’m going to do?”

“Nothing. Sign the paper.”

Katherine pointed out that all they’d be getting was her photocopy and my driver’s license if we signed.

I asked again, “What happens if we sign this?”

“You may go and walk away normally and we keep your documents until Monday.”

“Fine!” I scribbled a signature angrily and tore off the top copy – my copy – and reached out to hand them back their copy and pen. “You may have them!”

“YOU cannot tear it! You cannot have it!” A woman ripped all copies and the pen from my hands. The man added, “You are going to the office.” They began to lead us away.

“You told me that if I signed that then I could walk away.”

“You yelled.”

“I did not yell. I am tired. You told me that if I signed then I could walk normally.”

“You are going to the immigration office.”

“Where is the office?”

“Here.”

“The office is here? Where here?”

“Here.”

We were, by then, at a back door to the outside of the terminal. Police were waiting.

“You said it was here. Why are we outside?”

The military police took control of us. A female police officer was pushing my right shoulder, leading me towards an unmarked SUV. Katherine was behind us, also being led forward.

“What is this car?”

“Get in,” she said.

“Where are we going?”

“To the office.”

“They told me we could go if I signed a paper. I signed the paper. Then they told me I had to go to the office and that the office is here. Now we are leaving? To where?”

“The office. Get in the car.”

Katherine saw Dad’s car in the parking lot and pointed it out to me. I tried to get the police to talk to him.

“Look! That is my father’s car. He is inside and he will be worried. Please let’s find him inside and ask him about this.”

“You can call him at the office. GET IN THE CAR.”

As I got into the car I responded firmly, “This is not safe.”

They laughed.

We were pushed, albeit gently, into the back of the unmarked SUV. They drove us to the office located on El Prado. During the drive, one of the men in the front made a phone call, in which he said, “We have them. Six gringas from Chile.” Katherine and I were the only two gringas in the car. We were led inside and quizzed again. They called my mother at home and allowed me to talk to her. I filled her in and told her that we’d need legal help.

After a bit, one of the immigration officers stood in front of us, leaned back against the wall, and asked, “Are you more tranquil now?”

“I was tranquil, and I am still tranquil. I was and am confused. They said if I signed the paper I could walk normally. They said the office was there. These things did not happen.”

He chuckled and shrugged, “Sometimes they miscommunicate the full process.”

I asked him what would next happen. He stated that, “You will show us your documents. Or, we can hold you for eight hours. Then you will go to jail.”

He was standing below a poster which portrayed notable victims of racism in Bolivian history. My white skin could sympathize with the darker tones of the photographed victims of Bolivia’s past.

Katherine and I waited in the hall of the office until someone arrived. A dear friend of the family, who happens to be – without exaggeration – the world’s leading expert on Bolivian law, entered the building. He walked straight into the office and conversed with the inspector. He apparently had us released into his parole custody, and he then delivered us back to my home.

This is where we stand:
Katherine and I must be at the immigration office at 8:30 Monday morning. Katherine will show her passport, establishing herself as a legal tourist, and will be absolutely fine. For her this is a mere formality and her parole will be lifted. No problems, no records, absolutely no worries!

My situation is more complicated.

I have no passport to show, because Rita the Travel Agent has it. Dad and I went to Rita’s office on Saturday. She has promised to be available at her office at 8:00 in order to be picked up by us to go with us to immigration at 8:30. She absolutely must be there. If she skips out then a plan is in place to solve the situation. Our legal adviser, bless him, is positive that he can transfer my parole custody over to my father and can prevent me from going to jail. What happens Monday hinges largely on whatever Rita does – whether she appears, whether she still has my documentation after lying to me for nearly two years… and whether she has been behaving legally.

The questions for Monday are how much money I will have to pay the government of Bolivia – for her failure to procure me a legal visa – and whether I can stay in Bolivia at all.

The primary goal, of course, is to stay out of jail and, as Katherine puts it, refrain from becoming someone’s buttmonkey.

But I’d really like to stay in Bolivia, too, thank you.

Side note: all of this drama has been murder on my work – on which I WAS ahead of schedule! I’m madly trying to get everything finished and submitted on time with class deadlines. There will likely be a delay before I get to update the results of Monday morning, and delays will not mean that I’m a jail-stuck buttmonkey. Schoolwork is the priority, writing-wise.

When this is true in the context of day-to-day personal narrative (um, blogging), it usually means the storyteller doesn’t have time to build up to the punchline.

I get punched in the line Monday morning at 8:00, so I’ll skip ahead to the end and start blathering about my excellentfantasticinterestinghilarious-and-vomitous trip with Katherine through Western Bolivia later this week.

I’m on parole.

Theoretically, I could be in a Bolivian jail tomorrow evening.

The story is a bit spoiled by noting that jail is entirely unlikely, I realize, but the note is nonetheless fair.

Katherine and I took a double-decker bus from La Paz to Cochabamba on Friday night, leaving 10:30pm and arriving 6:00am. We arrived in Cochabamba about 15 minutes early, hopped down from the bus, collected our gear from below, and headed into the bus terminal to look for my father who was set to pick us up.

Twenty  feet into the terminal, Katherine was confronted by two individuals asking for her identification. I was about ten feet behind, so I caught up to them and asked what was up. They were from Immigration Control and insisted on documentation. We handed over a photocopy of Katherine’s passport and my U.S. Missouri Driver’s License. We left Katherine’s physical passport at our house in Cochabamba so as to not risk it getting stolen on the road.

My passport, however, is somewhere in the bowels of the red tape tangle of Bolivia. I have not seen my passport since November 2007.

I arrived in Bolivia in February 2007 when no significant immigration limitations were placed on American tourists. An American could enter the country without a visa and have 90 days, renewable up to 180 days, to hang out. Dandy! At the 90 day mark I had determined that I would be in Bolivia for about a year so I went to a local travel agency to start the process of a visa. I went to the agency to whom practically all of the local gringo missionaries are recommended because they have this little lady, Rita, who just whizzes people right through the system of endless paperwork. Hand over your cash and your passport, and she handles the rest. Just a few months later you have a shiny new ID card and a sticker in your passport.

My passport and cash, therefore, went into Rita’s hands. Several months later when I needed a quick jaunt to the States for business in October 2007, I had to spend an afternoon staring at Rita’s office from outside until she was willing to get up and go do the necessary steps to retrieve my passport from the mix of tramites – paperwork! – and provide me with a slip of paper which proved that I had been in tramites in an attempt to get a visa. She did so, I went on my trip, and returned to put my passport right back into tramites just days before the Bolivian immigration laws changed.

Moving on to August 2009, she still hasn’t given me a visa. The laws have changed, things are complicated, etc etc. I haven’t minded; as long as she sorts it out in the end, the delays have afforded me time in Bolivia that I’ve been able to use for good purposes. I should have been able to go in January 2010 without any significant problems other than her putzing around with time.

Katherine and I went on our jaunt across Western Bolivia. We’d flash our photocopies of our passports when necessary or just use our U.S. driver’s licenses when someone needed a photo ID without tax or travel ties. No serious problems.

In La Paz we attempted to schedule a trip up to Lake Titicaca and Copacabana. What we learned, however, was that an immigration checkpoint has been opened on the way to Copacabana, and that the officials wouldn’t be content with our photocopies, leaving us stuck having to give outrageous cash bribes. We skipped the Lake and spent more time in La Paz instead.

Everything seemed dandy until we found ourselves faced with two immigration officers ten inches from our faces in the middle of the bus terminal back home in Cochabamba…

Day 1: Cochabamba to Oruro via bus

Day 2: Oruro to Uyuni via train

Day 3: Uyuni Tour

Day 4: Uyuni Tour

Day 5: Uyuni Tour

Day 6: Uyuni Tour and Uyuni to La Paz Overnight

Day 7: La Paz to Copacabana and Lake Titicaca

Day 8: Lake Titicaca

Day 9: Lake Titicaca

Day 10: Copacabana to La Paz and Cholita Wrestling

Day 11: Tiwanaku

Day 12: La Paz

Day 13: La Paz to Cochabamba

Anything else we should add to the mix on the western side? We do have to stay within Bolivia, and we can’t be gone longer than 2.5 weeks.

I went to the edge of La Cancha, 25 de Mayo and Brasil, in order to get small fireworks. I was caught at one intersection in particular for about five minutes, sitting behind a bus. After a bit I heard loud talking to my left, so I looked:

A young woman holding an infant on the sidewalk was being poked and prodded in the shoulder by an older woman wearing indigenous dress. The older woman was clearly trying to help – the girl’s baby-holding-sling was digging deep into her shoulder because her sweater had come out from the edge. The woman was trying to tweak it to fit the problem while the girl kept shrugging her off.

At first I thought that the older woman was a stranger just being very helpful, but then I noticed that the interaction was much more that of mother and daughter. The mother saw a problem and kept trying to Fix Seen Problem while the daughter very much just wanted to be Left Alone, Thank You. The scene was sweet and amusing; some interactions transcend mere culture because they are fundamentally human.

The women were accompanied by a man the approximate age of the mother, and I presume that he was the husband/father. He kept staring at me in my car a few feet away. I wasn’t staring back, but I did look at them repeatedly over the course of the couple minutes it took them to rearrange themselves. I was enjoying the scene, and not much else was in my vicinity except the back of a big, ugly city bus right in front of me. I had my Friendly Face on; it’s the sort of non-committal but genuine face that people use when eye contact is made with strangers in the States. The Friendly Face is very much a cultural face, I think. I don’t see it often here in Bolivia.

The man said something that included “encantada”, or enchanted. His tone was not, however, thrilled. I wasn’t paying much attention. He said it again, and I looked at them. They were all staring at me! He was clearly angry, the daughter was wide-eyed and baffled, and the mother was stern.

“Pardon?” I asked.

He shook his fist at me.

I repeated, “Pardon?”

“Why are you so amused? Why do you smile because she has a problem with her clothes and baby? [insert another couple of very angry, loudly yelled sentences that I didn't catch in time]”

Naturally, this is just when traffic began to move. Also naturally, I didn’t have a clue how to phrase a response.

I had to move slowly forward with traffic, but I leaned out my window and gestured as my pidgin Spanish came out something like, “I don’t have a problem with you all! I only have happy for you! Only happy!”

Oh yeah. I’m articulate. The Spanish profs should be proud.

The daughter stayed wide-eyed, the mother looked wounded, and he was doing some combination of a grumble-snarl (grarl?). It took them another 30 seconds for them to walk past me again. My mind was working on the double, trying somehow to scrounge up the words:

“Your interactions make me happy!” Right. That sounds like a superior gringa response.

“I just think your family is sweet!” How can I explain that to someone who is snarling at me?

“You’re just like every other family in the world!” Um. That’ll be less offensive to him, sure.

None of this came out, though, when they walked past. They were ignoring me staunchly, although he was still muttering. I desperately tried to come up with some non-offensive, politically correct way of saying,

“Hi! I was people watching! You were two feet away from me! I have much respect for you and other members in your communities here in Cochabamba. Your family is adorable because you’re just like everyone else in the world, not that you should be unlike anyone else, and not that you’re trivialized or belittled in any way by my observation, it’s just humbling to see that everyone is so inherently alike while being so unique, and, and, and…”

It can’t be done. Especially not to someone intent on taking offense at a small, idiotic thing by which no condescension or rudeness was intended. Especially not with my linguistic skills. Especially not in a 15 second snippet with them on foot and me in car.

Minutes later, I realized what more completely I wanted to express.

“Get over it! I took joy in your family’s expression of care, love, and help for one another. You’re in public! Cope! Would you rather that I were as vitriolic and hateful as you? Wouldn’t your life be happier, fundamentally better, if you lived in a community that was accustomed to smiling and enjoying one another instead of assuming that others are mocking?”

Strangely, that much more direct approach could actually be said here. I didn’t, of course, and couldn’t even if I had been willing.

Just one more man convinced that there’s another ugly, mocking gringa in town… and all because that’s what he wanted and expected to see.

I have seen racism in Cochabamba, albeit rarely. I’ve seen it on three sides of the community:

The middle-class Bolivian pushing the indigenous woman aside like trash (a few times).

The gringo missionaries telling racist jokes, using racist language, and/or being generally racist pigs (three families/individuals, although one family has since left country).

The indigenous Bolivian treating gringos or more urban Bolivians with scorn.

Frankly, though, I haven’t seen it often. Cochabamba isn’t like that. Even if that man has experienced the hate of others, he has no excuse to assume that it is the norm.

There are moments when I long to be back in some parts of the States, in an environment which is comfortable. A cultural environment where smiling at others and greeting strangers kindly, or stopping to have a chat or help someone rearrange a heavy, awkward bundle is the norm, not the aberration. I have those moments of homesickness, but then I snap back to the present and am more determined to smile even more openly and to greet strangers more assuredly.

I am an American Gringa. Face it, I will foist my culture upon you:

I will smile and wish you a good morning.

Beware.

We appreciate the passion of these women and we value their desire to share encouragement and guidance with others.

However, we have very strong concerns about the ideas presented in their essays.

Marriage as an Idol

We see a recurring pattern which risks turning the institution of marriage, which is by all accounts a blessing from God, into an idol.

An idol is any element that we construct in order to find fulfillment while distracting ourselves from God.

Singletons frequently get tangled in the idea of marriage; the idea of getting and being married can become an enormous element in one’s life. The desire to be married can become a distraction away from God and from what God wants in one’s personal growth. The idea of marriage becomes constructed as an idol in one’s life.

The idol-construct of marriage can take several forms. For example: unrealistic expectations about married life. Some Christians view marriage as the only circumstance in which they will be happy, fulfilled, and productive. This leads to frustration and discouragement as a result of singleness, which squanders the unique opportunities for growth, joy, and productivity available to singletons.

The idol-construct of marriage is apparent in singletons who focus on the growth towards and the achievement of becoming married; bitterness and resentment develops and festers into a desperate anger with friends who become married, the Spouse-Who-Has-Not-Yet-Arrived, and ultimately with God.

This trap is dangerous because it is usually masked in God-speak. A singleton might focus on developing all manner of skills and characteristics under the guise of becoming a more godly future-spouse. In reality, all such skills and characteristics should be developed by Christians regardless of marital status – such skills are just a normal part of human development. If anything but God is the focus, then the development is both incomplete and done for the wrong reason. God must be the motivation, not marriage.

Not a reward system

Too often singletons engage in a deceptive and unbiblical attempt to create a reward system:

“I will develop this skill set and God will give me a husband.”

“I will take the initiative and God will give me a wife.”

“What do I have to do before God will give me a spouse?!”

This, frankly, is a sickness which lacks any measure of biblical support.

Singleness is not a failure

Humans are not failures if they remain single. Humans are not sucesses if they become married. Marriage is a neutral state.

Consider:
Two women exist. Both women are equally pursuing God, following God’s will, and fulfilling God’s work. One woman is single. One woman is married.

These two women are viewed equally by God. One is not valued more or considered more honorable or fulfilled because of her marital status.

A woman’s identity and life is not limited to nor necessarily focused upon being married.

The responsibility of all humans is to accept Christ. Every one of us has this opportunity. Some of us choose to accept and become Christians.

Christians have a further responsibility: to love and therefore to serve God. Every individual Christian has a different set of tasks and gifts assigned by God. Some female Christians find their set of tasks to be primarily oriented around being a wife and a mother. Not all female Christians, nor perhaps even most, are intended by God to orient the whole of their existence to this purpose.

Some female Christians are called to be leaders. Some are called to be teachers. Counselors. Advocates. Professionals.

VITAL: Not all singletons are future-spouses. Not all singletons are intended by God to be future-spouses.

Self-sabotage and destruction

The focus of a singleton on the desire to get married squanders the current ability and potential of that individual.

When we accept any idol in our lives, we cannot devote our all to God. We ignore our tasks. We squander our gifts.

Conclusion for EVERY Singleton:
Live your life. Pursue God. Seek His tasks and set about fulfilling them. If you happen to encounter another person along the way whose life’s work is compatible, then pursue God towards marriage if that is what He wants for you WHEN HE BRINGS IT TO YOU. Stop focusing on the subject now, because it can only distract you from God and the task God has assigned.