Once again, going out drinking in La Paz proves to be strange and hilarious

So I went into this local bar last night, a grubby little affair with oppressive fluorescent lighting and PVC tablecloths (for the record, I have seen fluorescent lighting done well in some places - virtually all the lighting here is fluorescent - but this wasn't one of those places). It looked like a blue-collar place, all middle-aged working-class Bolivian men, out drinking to get drunk (as is popular here. America doesn't have the market cornered on binge drinking). I took a seat at a table next to a woman and her husband, who looked in their late 40s or early 50s. The woman looked like she had some African blood in her family tree (definitely a rarity in Bolivia - we're pretty far from the Caribbean here), had several gold-rimmed teeth (quite common here), and had died her hair the horrible, pseudo-blonde that Bolivians seem to like (black hair doesn't go blonde easily, but I guess it makes them feel like Pamela Anderson or something). Her husband didn't have much hair left to die, and was totally passed out, head in his arms.

I ordered a beer and the woman, Doris, started talking to me. She asked me about Bolivia, and how I liked it, and how I liked Bolivian music (these are questions I hate: "actually, I kind of loathe Bolivia, especially your awful, Casio-keyboard bastardization of your traditional music that you play way too loud everywhere I go"). She also told me to be careful, because people will put things in my drink, or beat me up, and take my money. After a while it became evident she was flirting with me - especially once she gave me her phone number. I was trying to drink my beer faster, and then I noticed two Bolivian men standing next to me, practically on top of me, smiling at me. I said "hello?" a bit put off by their demeanor and by what Doris had been telling me. They pointed at my beer, and at Doris, and said some stuff I didn't really catch before walking away. "They want to kill you and take your money," Doris politely informed me, rolling her eyes as if to say "here we go again." "I have to go now," I thought to myself in distress. I'd had some beers before coming to this place, and was definitely starting to get drunk, and was getting pretty nervous too. I shotgunned my remaining beer and went to pay my tab, and the first bill I pulled out was a Bs. 100 note. I tried to quickly replaced the bill in my pocket, not wanting to flash my money around too much - but I must have gotten flustered and dropped it, because the note was missing this morning. Anyways, I paid my tab, and as I went to leave, Doris put her hand to her ear like a phone, and in a stage whisper said "call me!" I laughed all the way home, from the nervous release of escaping a potential danger, and for the pure comedy!

I had two really depressing thoughts in the past couple days. The first occurred when I was sitting out on the street at night, and a sweet stray dog came up and lay her head on my leg (most of the strays are sweet here actually; it's strange. They're all really nice, meek, and healthy-looking. Not like the mangy, mean dogs you see in Asia). As I sat there petting this dog, I was reminded of how unconditional a dog's friendship is, and how they want to be friends just for friendships sake, and how basically I've had no friends since I've been here. Friendship is something I haven't even come close to in the three months I've been in South America. The locals are either disinterested, hostile, or just after my money (or maybe they're as old as my mom and want sex); other travelers for the most part aren't traveling to make friends - they have their own itineraries and most of them already are traveling with someone. Especially when I'm on a 10-month trip, my pace is so different than virtually everyone else's that it's impossible to meet people to travel with, even for a short time.

The other thought occurred to me after watching the "Borat" movie. That wasn't my favorite movie, but I did laugh really hard in a couple parts; I laughed the kind of unbridled, hysterical laughter that I also haven't had in 3 months, because it's a laughter that can only come if you can let go of all your other concerns - for me, it was the laughter that could come from the anonymity and shelter of a darkened theater. For the most part, I have to spend all my time watching my back, struggling with the language, and trying to figure out why the Hell I'm in Bolivia on this grant. I never have the chance to laugh like that, or act silly, or even tell jokes. I'm always passing arcades or shops in the street playing cheesy dance stuff like "Jock Jams" (y'all ready for this?), and I always have the urge to start dancing in the street. But without anyone to share the joke with, I would just feel even more like a foreigner, and I always suppress the urge. It's like I'm just a shadow of my former, American, English-speaking self. And an un-funny, un-fun, unhappy shadow, at that. It's like a big part of my humanity has been stripped away, leaving more of my animalistic, survival-driven self. And I thought traveling would be fun.