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Returning to a new place
Every year, I return to my hometown of La Paz in the Andean altiplano of Bolivia. Every time, the city seems unchanged at first. Its downtown core continues hidden in a valley of jagged highland mountains. Its high-altitude air, two and a half miles above sea level, always feels thin and cold.
It is only on the drive from the airport I can notice the change since my last visit. Undeveloped land has been replaced by construction, construction lots have been replaced by houses, houses replaced by buildings, and buildings replaced by even taller buildings. The streets have widened, the sidewalks are busier.
My destination from the airport has changed over the years. My parents sold my childhood home and moved away from the city. After my grandfather passed, my grandmother sold my grandparents’ house — the only home that’s been a constant in my 30-plus year life.
Many of my former classmates from elementary school have moved elsewhere, hungry for more opportunity than a medium-sized city in a developing country can provide. I’m not in touch with most of the classmates who stayed. Their phone numbers have changed, and so have we. Former friends are now names on social media feeds and faces I see on the street occasionally, less recognizable when we walk by each other, unsure whether to greet each other or keep on walking.
