Nostalgia

Last night as I was lying in bed trying to go to sleep, I heard a dog barking outside and something about it just made me happy. It brought me back to my childhood because that's what I used to listen to every night when I would go to sleep. That and the distant cumbia music of chicherias playing until early morning hours. Those sounds were annoying to some people but they make me feel at home. As I lay there in bed, I started thinking about the other sounds of home for me. There's the clanging metal sound of the garafa truck and the trash truck letting the neighborhood know to bring out their trash or garafas. If we were in the city, there was the fruit vendor's nasally ..."naranja-mandarina-durazno-limoooon...naranja-mandarina-durazon-limoooon". And the trufis..."Villa Adela Villa Adela Villa Adelaaaa" And of course the endless chorus of honking buses and taxis. Funny how some random things can make you so nostalgic for home. The streets in the US are so strangely quiet.
Its not only the sounds of city life in Bolivia that make life there so much more interesting, but also just the unpredictability of every day life. You never know when the roads will be blockaded or when half the city will go on strike. Maybe you'll end up having to drive through a steep rocky riverbed in order to get home because the roads are full of protestors. Maybe you'll get caught in the middle of tear gas being shot off in downtown La Paz, maybe you won't be able to leave your house for several days...
Life is unpredictable.
To me, there's something appealing about the craziness of life in Bolivia. I know that Bolivia's social unrest is not something to be envied. Its more just the fact that the unexpected is expected, and simply going out into the streets of the city can be an adventure on any given day.