Bolivia: between dengue and merequetengue

Two Sundays ago I was getting ready to attend a lunch at the home of a Taura brother and before leaving I felt a tremendous reluctance, rare in me. I took my temperature and it was 39.1 degrees. When I got to the clinic it had already risen to 39.4. The fever was screaming. They laid me on a stretcher for three interminable hours to receive serum and that’s where the Way of the Cross began, which is only beginning to give way today, although not completely. And what was all this wretched fever about? Well, nothing less than dengue. The treacherous dengue that infected my daughter the same Sunday as the frustrated lunch and that had already infected Teresita, my wife, for three days.

Did the same mosquito bite us to knock out the three of us? Impossible, because I would have burst fat. He would not have been able to take flight after such a blow. It would be like a normal person eating three ducks. Fever, loss of appetite, chills, diarrhea, thrush, and everything else, appeared in my veteran body. Luckily Elvia, our collaborator, who knows them all, acted as a doctor and relieved us of our ills, sometimes with scientific remedies and other times with potions that I had already heard from my grandmothers and that make hair stand on end.

We have seen that dengue is spreading everywhere, especially in Santa Cruz, and that it can cause death, especially in children. Why is there so much plague in Santa Cruz? Or could it be that before there was the same thing and people died without publicity? Because now each patient has his curriculum, he has to declare why he is sick, to later become a TV star, eager for gruesome news.

When I was a boy, the bells of the cathedral tolled and it was a sign that some traditional character had died of old age and that embers had to be added to the iron plate so that the mourning suit would shine according to the deceased. Dengue, chikungunya, zica, measles, cholera, are the tropical pests that now visit us annually, as if we were in the heart of Africa at the mercy of shamans. Faced with the war against mosquitoes and for lack of anything else, we Cruceños are going to specialize in the ugly trade of manure incinerators inside our homes, even worse when the kilo is sold by the arroba and prices of basic necessities are going to reach.

Bolivia is a remarkable country where you look at it. I am coming out of dengue, which is a dangerous disease, and suddenly, looking at the old newspapers and on TV, I realize that we are immersed in a plague that could be worse: merequetengue. This is not fixed by burning horse dung but by stopping evil spirits. The merequetengue that we know in several Latin American countries is ladino on the one hand and festive on the other. It is confusion and chaos or also party and disturbance. In Bolivia, for a change, it has been chaotic.

From the shameless hidden camera in Governor Camacho’s cell in Chonchocoro, when not even his wife’s privacy has been respected, a haemorrhage of scandals worthy of Hell has been unleashed. Evo Morales assures that the so-called “renovadores” want to assassinate him and for their part the “renovadores” swear that Morales plans an assassination against Arce. And all for the Presidency of 2025. Intemperate and threatening voices appear from a Mr. Rolando Cuéllar, as well as another with the appearance of a Mexican wrestler with the last name Ezequiel and another with the French name Bohavaril, a deputy Choque and a deputy Arispe and another parliamentarian Arce and so successively they are filled with profanity against each other. That must be the “human talent” that the Minister of Government prides himself on when he refers to his people.

What we cambas don’t understand is why they call each other “brothers” and “sisters”, even though they hate each other. This false fraternal treatment is one more example of the sinuous and cynical temperament with which the mestizos of the Andes can embrace each other with a smile on their lips at the same time as with the dagger ready to stick it without disgust. Cain and Abel, meanwhile, are looking for the jawbone of the donkey to break the other’s head. However, they are still “brothers”.

The merequetengue will become danceable in these days of Carnival and the “brothers” will go crazy after the “sisters”, because you have to shake your skeleton. The chicha will run along with the floods. The people of Santa Cruz will be calmer, which does not mean that a five-day confinement will take place. Family reunions will not be lacking, nor will the band surely, but the most important troupes, the most traditional, will not participate in the privateering, nor in the coronation of our queen, who in a noble gesture she renounced her scepter.

The cruceño merequetengue has been established in the Civic Committee and it is a shame that this has happened regardless of who is right. It is a very ugly contagion that weakens us. This can break the unity of our glorious corporation, from the moment racist intentions are imputed to it. That that the color of the skin counts in the Committee is absurd, it does not exist. But it is not necessary for it to be true or not, when the enemies of Santa Cruz have already thrown to the four winds this lie that only has the goal of weakening the most authentic and courageous Santa Cruz institution.