clues that we are not in america

When you've been traveling a while you get accustomed to the newness of every day. You call any bed with your backpack on it home, you pick up enough phrases to get by in the markets and restaurants, you get used to throwing your t.p. in a basket instead of in the toilet. After a while the things that first struck you as bizarre and unfamiliar become normal.

Still, after five months in Bolivia, every day something reminds me just how far from home I am. This is not America (well, the north part anyway).

I discovered a street vendor selling a good array of herbs and spices the other day. She had about twenty bags filled with various dried leaves and ground spices, and while perusing the selection I noticed a dead mouse on top of the chamomile. It's not easy to find spices here, and I couldn't let a little rodent keep me from a good find, so I bagged up some rosemary and whole nutmeg, paid fifteen cents, and thanked the vendor. From my American point of view it's hard to figure why she didn't bother to get rid of the mouse –maybe it wasn't keeping other people from buying their chamomile tea, but I opted out on that one.

Driving is another thing – nothing like home. There are no stop signs or stop lights in town, and when you come to a four way intersection you either slow down to see who's coming or speed up and lay on the horn.

A lot of cars don't have headlights, but that doesn't keep anyone from driving in the dark. Sometimes you'll be cruising down the highway at night and come flying up on an invisible 18 wheeler loaded down with sugarcane. Same remedy as with intersections –either slam on the brakes, or fly around it with your thumb on the horn.

It's not unusual to see a family of four bouncing down the road all squished on a motorcycle. Six is the record we've sighted though. Incredible - flip flops and heads poking out everywhere.

I was hanging out with a woman at her house the other day, and her 18 month old was being fussy, so she asked her husband to take him for a ride on the motorcycle. Dad scooped up the baby and plopped him on the gas tank in front of him. The little guy grabbed the handle bars as though he'd done this dozens of times, and off they went down the bumpy gravel road at forty miles an hour, baby smiling and hanging on.

I like to imagine driving through charlottesville and being passed by a guy on a motorcycle with a barefoot baby sitting on the tank in front of him, chubby little fingers gripping the handlebars. Would that baby's delighted smile keep some horrified mom in a minivan from calling the cops? Doubt it.

When you're gassing up at the station, they ask everyone to get out of the car and stand to the side –apparently there is a frequency of blow-ups here.

Instead of cutting the grass, people just light the yard on fire every few weeks.

When you greet a woman you haven't seen in a few weeks she either tells you, "ewww, you've gotten fat, eh?" or, "ohhh, you're skinnier than you were last week." Apparently, they're both meant as compliments.

So while we're getting comfortable and accustomed to our simple, chill life here, there are still surprises to keep in interesting. And these are the moments that let me know I'm in the middle of the adventure I was hoping for.

I bet when we are back in the states it will be a struggle not to pack the children up and put them on the motorcycle for a trip to town –so fuel efficient and quite a bit more fun, anyway.