Family Values

I haven’t done much of anything today – I’ve allowed myself to have Fridays as my day off from work, so I’ve pretty much been sitting around, practicing my violin, and eating. This is actually really hard for me, because I constantly feel the need to be moving around and seeing things and “feeling productive.” But no, today I made myself be a couch potato, damn it. There’s actually a really great Vegetarian buffet 2 minutes from my house that I tried for the first time today. A full meal without meat is a rare commodity in La Paz, but it was quite tasty, and for 20Bs (about $2.5), I’d say I’ll definitely be visiting again. It’s just a shame that I’m at work during the typical “almuerzo” hours because I miss out on a lot of the lovely set-lunch menus and experiences.

Last night I gave my friend Vivi another violin lesson at her house up in Miraflores. Like most of my 30-something Bolivian friends, she lives with her mom, dad, sister, and grandparents. The family here seems to be a much more powerful force. Unless children get married (and even sometimes if they do), they continue to live in the same house with their entire family. Contrast that with the typical route for kids in the US: go to college and live with a bunch of friends hundreds of miles from your family. I shamelessly admit that part of my decision to go to Chicago had to do (initially) with its distance from my home, just like most college kids go through the “get me the hell away from here” impulse. But now that I’m living in a culture which values the family unit above the individual, I’m amazed and appalled that children are encouraged to leave the nest at such an early age, and moreover that they are encouraged to never come back.

Doesn’t it make sense from both an economic and a social perspective that single adults should live with their families? In addition to pooling resources, there’s also something inherently comforting about being with your relatives. While the family without a doubt comes with a fair amount of bickering, it also comes with an unconditional love that friends can never truly provide. More than anything, it’s just nice to see that my Bolivian friends have maintained such close relationships with their families, and I think it shows in the general level of happiness. People around here (for the most part) work what we would consider “crappy jobs” and have a much “lower standard of living”, and yet from what I’ve seen there’s a certain sense of content and tranquility that is totally absent from American culture. I fully admit that this is a combination of factors ranging from religion (Catholicism vs. Protestantism), proximity to nature, and lack of the western “work ethic”. In general, Latin American culture seems to have much more of a focus on the importance of social interactions, which makes North American culture feel disjointed and isolating.

I guess what I am trying to say is that after seeing this particular aspect of Andean (and I suppose Latin American) culture, I have begun to reconsider how my family will fit into my plans for the future. While I want to do things for myself, like travel and pursue international job prospects, I also want to be able to see my family on a weekly or even daily basis. Maybe even more than want it, I think I need it. Yes, we fight, we argue, and we get snippy with each other, but in the end I can’t think of anything that I’d rather be doing right now than eating dinner with my mom, my dad, and my two dogs.