“Go Up Thou Bald Head”

I get a tremendous amount of visual and even verbal insubordination in my role as a gringo amongst the indigenous population where we work. Add to that the freakish nature of my baldness (The Phantom of the Opera has noting on me, were I to let this grow out…) it pretty much goes non-stop. Naturally, the best most can do is say, “Uuuu you’re bald, in Quechua of course,” and that usually comes from school kids.

It makes me feel a bit like Elisha, hence the title but there are exceeding few she bears to tear them in pieces. There are dogs, but they routinely just bark at and bite me, not the rowdy kids. I usually come back with a definitive, “Well_Duh!!!” in Spanish of course or in Quechua depending upon my audience. I smile of course at their simple insult and think of my many mockeries as a teenager that I thought would just send me to Hell at the time. Then think what timely and just comeuppance.

But occasionally, I get ridiculed by a more noteworthy than usual character who derides me with a flare. The other day, a campesino named Teofilo neared me where I was conversing on the lawn with others of his community. He began asking me lugubriously what was wrong with my head. I might add that I have never seen this particular man sober in the three years that I have been here. He must be about 30 and his liver has to be getting pretty solid by now. Sadly he has about four children who will probably be without a father and will likely follow his example… Such is the case of life here in the altiplano.

Anyway, Teofilo continued non stop in the way of the heavily lubricated. He put his hand on my head and said, “The back of your head is too big… ¿Porqquuuee?” he slurred.

“I’m sorry you feel that way, my inebriated friend but there is little I can do at this point in my life.”

He continued, “The back of your head is very big…It is very bad (¡muy malo pue!). Then he launched into a discussion in slurry Quechua about how beautiful his head would be if I would shave it. “Will you shave it for me, just like yours?” he asked me. I laughed and told him I would be happy to, “But only when you are sober,” so that he could not say I did it to him while he was drunk. He looked at me through rheumy eyes and said, “Esshhta muuuuyyyy bien aaaamiggggho. Voy aaa esssshperarrrlo, pue.” Teofilo tottered off to the meeting for which we had all been waiting. There, the crowd ignored him but I let him speak his mind just to get a pulse on the community. They are smarter than one might imagine. I think they too would like to see him shorn but that would be unkind I fear. I also doubt that he would recall who dunnit.