Something Fierce by Carmen Aguirre

Author:Carmen Aguirre
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: BIO026000, book
Publisher: Douglas & McIntyre
Published: 2011-04-08T04:00:00+00:00

BOLIVIA WAS IN a state of joy when we returned from Brazil. General Vildoso had announced at last that Hernán Siles Zuazo would take over as president in October. The streets were jammed with people celebrating Bolivia’s imminent return to democracy. Political debates raged on every street corner, now that people felt it was safe to speak out loud. There were countless rallies and parades: to honour the incoming president, to grieve the thousands who’d been killed during the years of darkness, to welcome the returning exiles. Add to that Bolivia’s win in a major soccer championship in Europe, and these were the happiest times the country had seen in the last three decades. The day of the win, people ran out of their houses screaming to hug absolute strangers. Drivers pounded on their horns or abandoned their vehicles to jump in the streets. Fireworks, blaring music and outdoor dancing went on through the night. When Tahuichi, the junior soccer team, arrived in La Paz bearing the trophy, it was as if God himself had come down from the heavens.

I would be turning fifteen in October, and we planned to celebrate it with a simple gathering. My grandma Carmen arrived from Chile carrying an enormous cake. It had taken her two days to bake, she told us excitedly, and she’d been able to get it through Bolivian customs only by slipping a bottle of wine to the officer. Mami had sent her the money for the trip, so that she could fly to La Paz, and I ran to greet her as she walked toward us across the airport tarmac. In the taxi on the way home, she lamented my grandfather’s lousy back, which had kept him from coming along.

Once we got home, we served Abuelita some coca-leaf tea. That was the traditional way to receive new arrivals in the highlands.

“So, where’s the quinceañera party?” she asked with a twinkle in her eye.

“Right here,” I answered.

“Here? In this tiny living room? No!” She tapped me gently on the forearm, smiling.

My mother took over. “We’re not joking, Mamá. Carmencita’s having an intimate gathering of her close friends. She’s decided not to go all out.”

“You mean to say you’ve brought me all the way here and you’re not having a quinceañera party?” my grandmother demanded. She scanned our faces, hoping she’d misunderstood.

Parents spent years saving up for their daughters’ quinceañeras. They were wedding-like ceremonies involving ball gowns, live bands, hundreds of guests, a five-course meal, speeches and a throne for the girl being honoured. Fifteen was seen as the threshold of womanhood, and quinceañeras had been celebrated for centuries in Latin America, long before the arrival of the Europeans.

“Ay, Mamá, it’s so bourgeois—” my mother started to say.

My grandmother cut in, her eyes flashing. “Don’t give me that. Carmencita is turning fifteen. That happens only once in a girl’s life. I don’t know when you became so bullheaded in your beliefs, Daughter, but being as arrogant as a cat is deadly. Throw your daughter a decent party, for God’s sake.

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