Shannon Larratt is Zentastic

I haven't written about life in Mexico for a little while so I thought I'd add to my ongoing commentary. We have a maid that comes once or twice a week (it's less bourgeois than it seems, honestly). She's been coming for a while but I tend to hole up and work, so I only met her for the first time a few days ago. Rachel had mentioned to me that she was kind of tall and manly looking, but on meeting her I ammended that assessment — she was (or at least had been) a biological man.

What's interesting about this is that she appears to have a very normal group of female friends, and our friend that recommended her to us hadn't mentioned it — certainly in Canada or America that's usually something you let people know about in advance (not that I have a problem with it — it was just a surprise). Anyway, we asked our friend who recommended her and she confirmed the theory. Apparently transsexuals and transvestites are quite normal and common here and don't live the sociocultural freak lives we force on them up North. If that's true, that's a genuinely wonderful attitude.

Here in La Paz, a Catholic and conservative city of about 150,000, there are two dedicated lesbian bars (incidentally, the owner of our house is a lesbian, and there are many others we've met or know second-hand), and there are a large number of gay bars — although because of macho issues, they're just known as “men's clubs” (only one of them publicly identifies as a gay bar, and I suspect that's for the tourists). I don't know how true it is, but I have been told by locals that a majority of men here have gay experiences and it is not frowned upon or considered a “bad thing”. I have to say though that I have a nagging feeling that people are pulling my leg and telling me what they think I want to hear.

I've got an obsession going to Africa, like some kind of need that keeps calling me. I don't really know why. I know nothing about Africa. I'm like Nas's character that can't stop talking about it for the last half hour of Belly. Over the last year it's become more insistent, and I kept telling Rachel over and over that it was important to me — I have to tell her these things because she makes things happen for me.

Rachel mentioned my need to her mother, who replied in a matter-of-fact fashion, “Well, you should visit your godmother — she runs a cheetah reserve near the South Africa and Botswana border.”

There's a lot of other big game on this reserve as well, but it's sparse in terms of humans. You can take a tour if you'd like, but don't expect any people to show you around — that job is done by the elephants. Now, you don't ride the elephant. The elephant takes you for a walk around the farm, pointing out things with its trunk as it penetratively chats you up with its low rumbling voice, supplemented by telepathy of course. And people wonder why I can't shake this suspicion that my life is one big hallucination.

Anyway, from February 25th until March 13th or so Rachel and I will be in Africa. Maybe I'll want to stay forever, maybe it will cure me of this impulse. We land in Johannesburg, South Africa, and will also be in Windhoek, Namibia, as well as other places. I will be updating both BME and this site from the road. If anyone reading this lives in that vicinity and wants to hook up, please drop us a line!

Photos in this entry are courtesy of Bernard Cloutier — check out his inspiring site with hundreds of his travelogues from around the world (and much more).