Laguna

The teachers at Maryknoll like to ask their students about their weekend plans, and then they like to ask their students what they did on the weekend. These are the top conversation starters in their set of conversation pieces. They are also the questions I like least to answer, because usually I have nothing to report. Nobody wants to hear a recitation of my chores, like hanging my laundry or grooming my beard. With no more trips like Uyuni on the horizon, what can I tell my teachers … or you, for that matter? 

I realize the time I have in Bolivia is diminishing, and each day gone is a day more precious than the last. And it occurred to me this morning that I am on the forward side of timesickness. Five full weekends left and many empty weekday afternoons. What an opportunity! Now I can act assertively and make plans, however small, that will keep me from looking back at the end of my Bolivian journey with sad regrets. 

I’ve been studying the city map Señora Kitty gave me when I arrived in February. There are many things to see and do in Cochabamba that I have yet to accomplish. For instance, I promised myself a stroll around Laguna Alalay. Yes, a lagoon floats here in the city on the eastern perimeter. I first had a look at the lagoon from the summit of Colina San Pedro, at the feet of Cristo de la Concordia. I knew then that I wanted to have a walk about the lagoon. When the Maryknoll language program team took its bus tour around the city, we all made a short stop at the shore of the lagoon. Since then, I have wanted to perambulate the waters even more. I made myself a promise. Well, let’s fulfill the promise! I can pretend I am back in the wilderness of Potosí, heading south past the Salar de Uyuni, from the salt of the earth toward the end of the earth and the top of the world, regarding those lagoons with their flocks of flamingos. This time, however, there will be no tourist distractions, no phone cameras held high, no drones flying high, no time limit to our gazing and contemplating. 

There are other gardens and green spaces that I have yet to contemplate. I know where they are. There are museums and galleries I have seen and others I have not. I can go at will and not have to worry about leaving after only an hour. There is fine food to taste. There are other stages like Teatro Adela Zamudio. There are movie houses, too. Maybe there are good documentaries at the multiplex or elsewhere to stretch my mind and expand my soul, and not only the same loud boring sentimental violent Hollywood movies, only dubbed into Spanish, that the brothers at Convento San Francisco watch on a bootleg DVD every Thursday or Sunday. There are other churches where I have yet to worship. 

This is the forward side of timesickness, the future that can become present. Let’s get ahead and put that pathology to death. Today, to Laguna Alalay. I’m going for a nice long walk to freedom, to myself.