To Bolivia and Back

After a very long journey I finally made back to Bolivia, and immediately suffered from the altitude sickness the day after; I had to take it easy for a couple of days, and drink a lot of coca tea, until my body adapted to the altitude. This time I did not stay for long in a hotel, only a couple of days, in the same hotel Colon were I stay every time. The old lady owner greeted me with a lot of gusto as always, I had told her the time before that it would me my last time in Bolivia, but I guess one should never say never.

My girlfriend invited me to stay at her family house, were I was well received, and told that from now on I am member of the family. We had a dinner the next day, which was attended by a few dozen members of here family. We and Bolivian are very alike in this respect; the larger family (uncles, ants, cousins and nephews) is an important part of our life, and we often have gatherings with them. In the dinner they served tradional Bolivian dishes including my favorite: Picante de Lengua (Cow tong in a sauce with vegetables)

A couple of days later we had another dinner this time I was asked to cook, I made Kafta (Kebab in the oven), and Tabuleh. It was quite a success, and I had to make Tabule again before leaving Bolivia, for the ones who could not attend the first dinner.

We had investigated the possibility of getting married in Bolivia, but decided not to attempt it, as the red tape was too long; I needed to get my papers from the Ministry of Interior here in Israel, translate them, certify them in the Israeli consulate here, then in the Bolivian consulate here, then again in the Israeli consulate in Bolivia, and after this whole process we would receive our Bolivian marriage certificate in Spanish, which I would then have to do the whole reverse process again to get it certified for use in Israel.

Although we could not have our civil marriage ceremony in Bolivia, we wanted to have some kind of celebration for her family. Mauge decided it would be a launch in a country side hotel (casa campestre). We had a buffet of traditional Creole dishes (a lot of meat), followed by
traditional music and dancing. After the dining and dancing was finished, it was time for speeches, Vladimer, Mauges brother started, by announcing to the guests that I and Mauge were going to get married and go live in Israel, it was a shock to some of the guests as Mauge did not tell all of them what was the occasion for the launch. Then one of her uncles spoke and then it was my turn to speak, I was suddenly put under the spot light, and I had no speech prepared, but I improvised something (in Spanish) which left my girlfriend quite impressed. After that there was a lot of hugging and crying, as we received the congratulations and the good byes for each guest.

Then it was time for us to fly to back to Israel, it was an emotional time for my girlfriend and her family of course, the fact that there Mauge was going to leave to live in another country was sad for them, and the stories they heard in the news about my country further fueled there worries, and again there was a lot of crying.

The trip back went quite well, Alejandro the 5 year old son of my girlfriend behaved well during the flights, he passed his time during the long flight by watching the same animation movie four times in a raw, and he he still watched with gusto the fourth time. Everything else went smoothly, and we made back to Israel.

If you are wondering about my ipod speakers that were confiscated from me in the airport in Israel, I have not seen them again, I tried to retrieve them in Milano, but I was told that they were shipped to head courters, in Roma, well they served me well for a year and half.