106 CultureShock! Bolivia
Marriage and Companionship
In contemporary Bolivia, regular outlets for same sex
companionships coexist with increasingly companionate
marriages. Men once had the regular viernes de soltero
(bachelors’ Friday) at the tavern, but the custom is
disappearing. Male space is conserved at Saturday afternoon
ritual games, including a dice game called cacho, and get-
togethers at the football stadium. Female space survives at
teas, an afternoon ritual inherited from the English mining
colonisers, but teas may also be mixed-gender occasions.
Rummy-canasta card games remain women’s afternoon
affairs within a home setting. Teas sometimes take place in
public eating places specifi cally designed for such occasions,
but most women’s get-togethers are at-home events.
Oldenburg suggests that in the West, the strain of a
marriage ideology in which couples are supposed to do
everything together may be one reason for such a high rate
of extramarital affairs. But in Bolivia, where both men and
women alike have ample same sex outlets beyond the home,
extramarital affairs are no less common.
The Bolivian farra (a night of hard drinking) may lead to
an extramarital affair for the man. But Bolivian women do
not accept this custom with stereotypical submissiveness or
resignation. For every man with a mistress, there is probably
a woman with a lover outside of marriage.
For these affairs to take place, Bolivian cities provide what
is called the ‘motel,’ which has nothing to do with a motor
trip. Cars parked at motels are hidden by curtains. There is
an hourly rate, varying according to the quality of the motel.
I used to live next to a motel called redundantly Moteles Inn.
As I crossed the street for groceries, I observed a car leaving
the motel; a woman inside indiscreetly covered her face with
El Diario, La Paz’s largest broadsheet newspaper. Wealthier
men avoid these moments of embarrassment by purchasing
automobiles with dark, tinted windows.
An occasional scandal may erupt outside motels when
the slighted mate discovers the illicit affair. The name-calling
described by neighbours who witnessed a motel scandal on
my block is not repeatable in these pages.