The Big Decision

I've been posting selections from Voluntary Nomads since last September -- a story from each chapter of the book, about 15 per cent of the whole -- and today's is the last excerpt. From Part Eight: Bolivia Cliffhangers, Chapter 33:

The Big Decision

Tina joined us in La Paz for her third Christmas visit and we made our requisite trips to the big market for hand-woven aguayo tablecloths and to Elizabeth's shop for gifts and souvenirs that Tina wanted for her friends. Fred and I had a lovely time during Tina's visit. Tina, not so much. Two days after Christmas she spoke her mind at breakfast.

"The last thing I want to do is to hurt your feelings…."

In the pause that followed I gathered courage to face her next words.

"You know how much I love you guys, but…I want to change to an earlier flight…. I have a life and I want to get back to it."

We put her on the plane on December 30, instead of January 10 as planned. That meant we would be apart on her twenty-second birthday, the first birthday without us in her entire life. I put on a serene front but my insides ripped asunder. Letting go required a strength I wasn't sure I had.

In the car on the way home from the airport, Fred and I blinked our swollen, blurry eyes.

"You know what?" I said. "She's right. I think we should leave early too. I have a life and I want to get on with it."

Until that moment we had dithered about setting our retirement date. We wanted to collect our reward of early retirement and live closer to our families, but we had financial fears. With twenty-five years of service, counting his four years in the Army, Fred's annuity would equal fifty percent of the average of his highest three years' salary. The loss of my income would reduce our total budget to about one third of our current spending power. I thought of a pie chart and visualized a one-third-sized wedge. Small. Less than half.

Still, I had read Your Money or Your Life by Vicki Robin and I understood how it was possible to live a fulfilling life on less money. The question we had to ask: how much is enough? Our situation would have been more daunting if we hadn't experienced our quasi-hippie period in the early 70s when we learned to make do with much less. Also in our favor was the state of mind we had maintained over the years, living frugally and saving well.

Fred said he was willing to continue in the Foreign Service as long as I would go along. But I was ready to leave it behind. After years of re-inventing myself at every post while staying within the identity of Fred's wife and Dakota and Tina's mother, a basic instinct prodded me to pursue a deeper knowledge of myself. I needed to explore who else I might be – potter, artist, singer, quilter, marathon runner, who-knows-what -- and I wanted to do it in New Mexico. ###

To read all of the stories in Voluntary Nomads, order the paperback from Amazon or Barnes and Noble (Nook book available there too). Popular E-book formats are available at Smashwords too. Go to Outskirts Press for book club discounts (listen to an audio clip there as well) or download a pdf file to read on your computer.

One Way Home

From Voluntary Nomads, Part Eight: Bolivia Cliffhangers, this excerpt from Chapter 32 shows one way to escape a demonstration --

One Way Home

          Within a month of our arrival in La Paz, I found a job in the Narcotics Affairs Section (NAS). Although the name sounds sexy, this department did not promote doped-up trysts but rather the business of drug interdiction, a somber and dangerous undertaking. My job entailed only office work, however; no danger for me. The senior secretary in the office, Lisa Fowler, young enough to be my daughter, and an innocent newlywed accompanying her husband on his first overseas assignment, heaved a sigh of relief when I let her know I was not at all jealous of her seniority. We got along great.

The NAS office occupied the northwest corner of the third floor of an old bank building leased by the embassy. A long wall of windows faced the same direction as the embassy's entrance. One of those windows still bore the scars of a recent demonstration -- cracks in a star-shaped pattern from the impact of a medium-sized object, maybe a brick or rock. As the newest member of the NAS staff, I sat at a desk in the corner of the reception area. Everything about the office seemed decrepit. Heating pipes exposed their peeling paint and electrical wires drooped in random loops hanging here and there. The air smelled like ancient Incan relics from the downtown black market.

In spite of the rundown physical environment and the serious tone of the war on drugs, my office mates were cheerful and upbeat – when they were there, that is. Since most of the coca-growing and cocaine labs were in the jungle region, the staff traveled often, leaving Lisa and me to run the office.

Demonstrations flared up in front of the embassy about once a month. I was relieved to learn that the demonstrators marched to protest Bolivian, not American, government policies. However, our embassy was located right across the street from the offices of the Bolivian Labor Department. Normally we had plenty of notice before a scheduled march and our security office closed the embassy for a couple of hours and advised everyone to draw the drapes and stay away from the windows. The demonstrators would gather at the top of the street at noon and chant their way down a dozen blocks to the Labor Office, exploding half-sticks of dynamite and throwing bricks at windows along the way.

One particular demonstration played out in a different way, especially for me. This time we had only a few minutes' warning. And it was late in the day, 4:30 PM, almost quitting time at the embassy, and I was alone in the office. When Security announced that the embassy would be locked down in ten minutes, I reacted without considering the consequences. I shut down my computer, grabbed my purse and sweater, rushed down the stairs and out the door. In the back of my mind I pictured flagging down a trufi (share-taxi) on the next street west of the embassy and arriving home in Achumani in thirty minutes, long before the demonstration hit its peak. But when I reached the next street, which was a major taxi route, there was not a single car as far as I could see in both directions. I learned later that part of that day's protest included a taxi drivers' strike, but having no idea in the moment, I hurried along in a direction that I hoped would take me to another taxi route a safe distance from the demonstration.

I crossed street after street as empty as if a major evacuation had already occurred. I began to perspire. I might have been walking fast enough to break a sweat, but I also felt a sense of impending doom. Maybe I was in serious trouble. Best-case scenario, I faced a ten-mile walk home in the dark. Located so close to the equator, La Paz days and nights were of equal length year round, so the fact that it was summer didn't help me, other than providing survivable evening temperatures.

The end-of-the-world appearance of the streets continued until I reached the Prado, the city's downtown area. Traffic appeared to bustle as usual until I noticed that the assortment of vehicles included neither taxis nor minibuses. I reconciled myself to the prospect of a long hike in inadequate shoes because I am neither brave enough nor foolhardy enough to hitchhike. Anywhere. Not in La Paz, Bolivia, of all places. I turned toward home with determination and strode forward, fantasizing about a miraculous rescue coming before holes appeared in my shoe leather.

A passing shot of color caught my eye. I watched the big yellow bus roll past and discharge a passenger on the corner. I had seen these buses every day but never gave serious consideration to riding one. Their routing system was a complete mystery to me and I couldn't imagine being able to manage the embark/disembark procedure. The Cholita buses, so called because of the preponderance of bowler-clad Aymara lady passengers, moved along at about ten miles an hour unless picking up or letting off, when they slowed to five miles an hour, requiring the passengers to scurry alongside before getting on or after getting off.

I noticed the lengthening shadows and shivered at the cold strip of dampness between my shoulder blades. I amped up my courage and made the leap onto the next Cholita bus. I scrambled on board and paid my fare, the equivalent of ten cents. I found a vacant seat near the back and prayed that this bus would take me closer to home. From my vantage point I could watch the other passengers and analyze their arrival/departure techniques.

Most of my companions that day were Aymara Indian women, dressed in their ample layered skirts, carrying who-knows-what-all in their multicolored hand-woven aguayo cloth wraps, bowler hats perched on their heads at a rakish angle. I would have been happy to eavesdrop on conversations, but no one spoke. I tried to relax and enjoy the atmosphere, but whiffs of odd odors kept me on edge. I could detect food smells and sweaty smells, but there was also a nostril-crimping undertone that reeked of waste and rot. I squirmed a bit and estimated how long it would take to travel ten miles at an average speed of 8 miles per hour.

I lost the urge to gag as soon as I recognized the shops of Calacoto. Elizabeth's store, where we shopped often for rugs and souvenirs, never looked as good to me before. If the bus continued on this main street, I would be able to jump off at the corner two blocks from our house. I wondered if Fred knew I was unaccounted for. He might be locked in the embassy still, or he might be home already. In those days without cell phones, we were accustomed to spending considerable time out of communication with each other. I hoped he wasn't worried about me.

As the bus started up the hill toward Achumani, I prepared my exit strategy. Stand up, proceed to the side exit and face the door. Wait for the bus to slow as it approaches the corner by our local butcher shop, hold the pole in a firm grip, and exit running.

When I hit the road I stumbled, flailed to regain my balance and – success! I huffed my sense of relief and crossed the main street at our corner.

Lights glowed in our windows and warmed me with a welcome sense of home. I found Fred in the bedroom changing out of his work clothes into his comfies. He had arrived only minutes before, surprised that I wasn't home, but not worried yet. I enjoyed telling him the tale of my journey. He made me promise that was my only ride on a Cholita bus. When I told my friends, their reaction made me feel as brave as nineteenth century explorer Isabella Bird. Lisa, my office mate, gave me a miniature Cholita bus tree-ornament that reminds me every Christmas of my potential for spunk. ###

If you want to read more than just excerpts, Voluntary Nomads is available in paperback at Amazon ( click here ) and Barnes and Noble ( click now ). Barnes and Noble also carries the NOOK book ( click this ). Other e-book formats can be downloaded from Smashwords ( click once ) and Outskirts Press ( click ).



Amazon Cruise

Dancing in the Rain

Today's Voluntary Nomads excerpt comes from Chapter 31 of Part Eight: Bolivia Cliffhangers:

The Amazon Cruise

We called one of our excursions in Bolivia "The Amazon Cruise," although that sounds grander than it was. We didn't cruise the actual Amazon. We putt-putted down the Mamore River, a tributary of the Amazon, for three days on a boat not much fancier than Humphrey Bogart's African Queen. To get to the boat, we flew to the town of Trinidad and chartered a bus from there to the river.

As our small plane carried us from the runway at 13,000 feet up through the Andes and back down to sea level, we passed between snow capped mountain peaks looming higher than our cruising altitude on both sides -- more spectacular than the IMAX movie experience – I hung on to the armrests as if I could keep the plane airborne by myself.

Our embassy CLO (Community Liaison Officer) had organized this trip and chartered the boat we would take down the river. We knew all of the passengers, but we partied the most with our friends Paul and Vicki. The fun started early because of Vicki's fear of flying. She swigged a pre-flight dose of courage and continued to drink, as fast as the attendant could serve her, all the way to Trinidad. Vicki personified life-of-the-party all morning.

The bus we caught at Trinidad kept the fiesta theme going with its splash of colorful decorations typical of the region. The worn-out shock absorbers were equally typical of rural Bolivia. We didn't care. Like a bunch of kids on the way to summer camp, we sang songs (led by our tipsy first-grade teacher of course) and laughed and chattered all the way. The sun shone in a cloudless sky. The tropical humidity brought curls even to my stick-straight hair.

The boat looked sea-worthy to me, but I wondered how our crowd could fit on it. When the door of our cabin opened, I understood. Inside I saw a cot-sized bunk bed. That's it. There was just enough room for one person to stand beside the bed. When Fred and I were both in the room, one of us had to crawl into the bed to allow room for the other to change clothes.

One toilet/shower stall served all passengers. I could tell that the shower used murky river water, so I didn't bother with it. I inferred the same about the toilet and lost the tiny spark of enthusiasm I might have had for swimming in the river. Learning that the river hosted piranhas and crocodiles convinced me to stay dry.

Fred, however, trusted that the captain wouldn't encourage any dangerous activity. He swam in that malignant stew of microorganisms and sharp-toothed predators as did a few others, including Vicki and Paul. He also went crocodile hunting. I kissed Fred goodbye when he left on that excursion, not knowing whether he would return in one piece if at all. He was one of six bold hunters who crept out that night. They beamed a bright light along the shoreline to attract the baby crocs and then kidnapped the unwary beasts with their bare hands. Sport for the hunters brought terror to the crocodile nursery, but the catch-and-release escapade ended happily for all.

The day the rains came, our captain asked for volunteers to catch fish for dinner. I raised my hand. Fred looked surprised that I would do such a thing, but he volunteered too. An older fellow and his grandson joined us, and we stepped into a flat-bottomed wooden rowboat with a crewmember/guide who supplied us with waterproof slickers and fishing gear.

The guide handed each of us an ordinary cane pole equipped with twelve inches of steel leader attached to a barbed hook baited with chunks of raw beef. He demonstrated the proper fishing technique. First he dropped the baited hook into the river. Then he slapped the water's surface vigorously for a few seconds with the tip of his pole, and wham! I flinched as he jerked the fish past me into the boat. The guide cautioned us to fling our hooked fish toward the bow of the boat, away from our feet. Using his deft and heavily scarred hands, he grabbed his fish, stabbed it between the eyes with a short knife, and removed the hook.

A gentle rain kept the swarms of mosquitoes at bay and we merry anglers fished for an hour. We caught over forty piranhas and had them for dinner that night, the smaller ones in a savory soup and the larger ones fried to crisp delectability. We nibbled tiny bites, to savor the flavor and also to pick out the numerous tiny bones.

Fred had befriended the captain, trading manly tales and drinking beer with him as he piloted us down the river, and the captain returned the favor by giving Fred a shellacked piranha skull as a memento. We have displayed it on our mantelpiece ever since, to the grisly fascination of our grandsons.

We went on shore once to visit a village. The people lived a simple life with few possessions. Everyone we met wore a smile; most of the younger ones wore only a smile. The village occupied a clearing in a forest of mango trees. We slipped and skidded on the slick conglomeration of rotted mango fruit and river seepage. The sweet stomach-turning odor and proliferation of flying insects drove us back to the boat within minutes. I might have enjoyed the fresh fish and fruit diet, but still I felt glad that I wasn't born to be a resident of the Amazon jungle, prey to the biting hordes.

The rain continued, sometimes heavy, sometimes light, but always steady. We continued to party, as unstoppable as the falling rain. When we had consumed all the beer on the boat, the captain announced that we had set a record. We didn't see pink elephants then, but we did doubt our eyes when pink dolphins cavorted in the water ahead of us. They were real, the captain assured us – a species of fresh water porpoise in shades of pink darkening to purple – colorful beings rollicking in the bow waves of our boat.

At the end of the cruise we expected to reverse our earlier journey. But the unusual amount of rainfall had created a soupy mess where the road used to be and our bus stayed stranded miles away in Trinidad. We had to settle for the best alternative – our group hired two flatbed trucks whose drivers were willing to brave the conditions. We piled in and scrabbled anxiously for a handhold.

The trucks fishtailed down the road, sliding from one side to the other, swerving too close to the edge of a three-foot drop-off to the ditch that ran beside fields of manioc and maize. I clung to Fred and Fred clutched at a splintery board that jerked back and forth with the movement of our truck. As the trucks sashayed, the mud flew and splattered us from head to toe. I clamped my lips closed and kept my head down, grateful for the shelter provided by the bill of my cap.

I feared for our lives, but neither of the trucks overturned or got permanently stuck. We were a stunned bunch of Yankees who disembarked at the airport. Bystanders' incredulous gazes followed as we scraped mud clods from our bodies and straggled single-file toward the check-in desk. ###

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