Bolivian Voices

Original: Los Globazos Juego Cruel
In Aymara: Jan waliw umamp jaqusiñ anatañaxa

You can now feel that it is Carnaval in Bolivia. Neither the climate, nor the social conflicts stop people, especially young people to begin to play with water, as they do during these holidays. In the entire country, everyone plays with water (especially boys that throw water on girls), but this does not stop with one drenching. It goes much further, for example in Santa Cruz, they throw them in puddles, something that I don’t like at all, but what can one do?

Here in El Alto, the boys from the UPEA (Public University of El Alto), are already playing with water, and you know who are paying the consequences of this cruel game? Yes, you guessed correctly it is the girls, including me. When I say that it is a cruel game, I say so for the following reasons:

1 - Isn’t it cruel when you fix yourself up and dress nicely to go to the university in order to flirt with a boy that you like or look your best and all of a sudden they drench you and they leave you a disaster?

2 - Isn’t it cruel when you are walking to class and all of sudden you feel a horrible slap on your back or another part of your body, thanks to those deadly water balloons that in addition to getting you wet, even breaks your skin?

3 - Isn’t it cruel when you are walking to the university to fulfill our obligations as a student and all of a sudden one of those water balloons hit directly on your notebooks and textbooks leaving them soaking wet and ruined?

For these and other reasons, I say that these games of water balloons are cruel. On the other hand, I must admit that on the last day of classes before the Carnaval holiday, I enjoy this cruel game because it is not cruel anymore, when you are ready to play with water and ready to exact our revenge on all those boys that made suffer during class.