Different Customs

By Armando Huerta

As an international mutt moving around from country to country on average every three years it has always been an effort for me to say where I am from. Despite my passport since birth, growing up in various countries makes the question of what country in this world I would truly call home a challenge I have yet to overcome.

This was never the case with my father. Having lived in Bolivia up until he left in his mid-twenties to continue his post-grad education abroad he clearly and completely considered himself a Bolivian. He had actually incurred the wrath of his family by not only never coming back to live there but also marrying a blond haired, green eyed Brazilian bombshell without their approval. Many was a time when my widowed aunt, deciding my sister was the weakest link of the three children, would pull her onto her black clad lap and try to convince her that if she aided in my parents getting a divorce we could all live happily with her in La Paz.

While that, thankfully, never happened, we did, as a family, make an annual pilgrimage to Bolivia so that my father’s family (8 aunts and uncles and more cousins than I can possibly count or remember) could survey us, laugh at our clothes and accents and serve us food so spicy I would often start crying at the table (I was one of those spoiled fat cry-babies).

As is the custom with old school Latin families, the patriarch was the oldest sibling, in this case my uncle Jorge. Trust me, no one could assume the role better than he. Along with his piercing blue eyes he had a no bullshit demeanor gleaned from years in the air force where he eventually was made a general. Many a times he’d march me around the yard correcting my posture and telling me to suck in my stomach. Needless to say, that combined with the altitude sickness I experienced every single time we landed in La Paz, made trips to Bolivia fall very low on my wish list.

His imposing manner did help out from time to time however. Bolivia, in that era under a military regime, was a closed economy where electronics were prohibitively expensive and scarce. As such, we would arrive packed like gypsies, carrying not only gifts but also fulfilled shopping lists which were mostly comprised of VCRs, walkmans and Casio recorders. You could see the customs agents wetting their lips and salivating when we’d leave baggage claim, their minds registering the bribes and confiscated goods they’d bring home that day transforming their humble abodes into a delinquent mall. Alas, they did not reckon facing my uncle. The minute he would see a customs agent making a motion to stop us he’d leap over the railing screaming bloody murder and waving his military ID. The agent would become petrified as my uncle would threaten him with a beating, life imprisonment and the deflowering of his prettiest daughter. This behavior used to mortify me, while at the same time I must admit, thrill me as the gates would open and we’d be escorted out of customs by kowtowing customs agents mumbling their apologies. My uncle always appreciated the humor of those moments and would laugh the whole way to hotel, pantomiming the horrified faces the agents made as he careened down the highway from the La Paz airport immune to police…. above the law.

Armando Huerta is a writer living in Athens, Greece.