104 CultureShock! Bolivia
embrace, then shake hands again with the men and with the
women, you may kiss them on the left cheek alone, or left
cheek–right cheek.
There are no practice sessions to learn these procedures,
and “experience is the worst teacher”, as Vernon Law once
said, “because it gives you the test before the lesson.”
Children are expected to follow the same procedure, and
male children are also kissed on the cheek by adults. It gets
complicated if there are 26 people in the room and you must
make the rounds, embracing each man and kissing each
woman one by one, especially if, at the same time, they are
moving around and you might miss one.
My solution: commit the faux-pas of arriving fi rst. This will
allow you to be the object of the greeting process rather than
the subject. Using the same logic in reverse, when leaving
be the last.The Fiesta
If you are uneasy about language subtleties, you will be
relieved if the social situation is labelled a party. At parties,
you are unlikely to get to know anyone you don’t already
know. The uninterrupted dancing rarely allows for what we