The Rich Bolivian: Adolfo Nayar

For my intercultural experience I decided to interview a good friend of mine named Adolfo Nayar on Friday the first of March (Sorry there aren't many Pictures or any video). He was a foreign exchange student that stayed with my family during my Junior year of high school. The interesting thing about Adolfo is there are a couple cultures he lives within that were interesting to talk to him about. I interviewed Adolfo in Spanish because his English wasn't the best and sometimes it is easier to understand a culture when they speak in their native language because of how they explain things and they feel at ease. The Nayar family is from Santa Cruz de la Sierra, Bolivia and happens to be extremely wealthy because his dad is the Attorney General of Bolivia and is very well known.  So the two cultures I decided to analyze were not only the Bolivian lifestyle but yet the immensely wealthy lifestyle. Although Adolfo and I grew rather close during his stay in Minnesota, we have grown apart over the years so the first part of the interview was mostly us catching up. For purposes of understanding, I decided to explain and summarize what was said in the interview as opposed to leave it in Spanish so that everyone could understand what was said. He explained things in multiple words that just couldn't really be translated to English but I feel as though I did a good job at getting the big picture across about what exactly was said and talked about in the interview. Here is a summary of what was said:

We talked about how college in South America is free to attend so unfortunately for Adolfo he has had a hard time attending class because he doesn’t have something to lose by not attending and therefore has failed out of 5 colleges and counting. I then took the opportunity to ask him about his lifestyle during college and what the parties are like or what he does for fun and it became very clear why he had failed out of 5 colleges already. The parties don’t start until 1 am and don’t end until 6 am in Bolivia and because of how wealthy he is, he and all his friends party celebrity style and get into all the VIP clubs. Partying in Bolivia, or at least in Adolfo’s life is centered around dancing and it becomes a competition as to who will have the biggest tab for alcohol at the end of the night… Adolfo said he usually wins and said that the most he ever spent in one night on alcohol was $1200. He has as personal driver to bring him wherever he wants and never has to worry about getting in trouble with the police because of who his dad is. He was very happy to hear about my life but really just wanted to keep talking about his. So I asked him what the culture of Bolivia was and he said that the civil war has really hurt Bolivia as a country and in fact he was at one point escorted out of the country because of his last name. He said the makeup of his life was very family oriented and very heavily surrounded on how many friends he has. He was very proud to say that he had over 1,000 friends on facebook. He then began to question me about my accomplishments and it almost became a competition of whose life has been better over the next few years and I remembered how competitive and proud Adolfo was, almost to a fault. I told Adolfo that I was getting married in June and he told me how bad of an idea that was and it was almost offending to hear him describe women and how bad of an idea that was. I won’t disclose some of the words he used but I will say that the language became very crude. Adolfo then said he had to go as he was about to prepare for the party by going to the gym first and had to go but I had time to ask him one more question and I asked him this: What is the biggest difference between America and Bolivia? He answered by saying that for one the weather but most importantly our governments were very different. He said that most of Bolivia doesn’t have the opportunity for success and if it wasn’t for his family’s immense wealth he would rather live in America. He just said that being away from his family makes life harder for him as all he has to do is ask and he will receive. He apologized and then promised to send a gift to the U.S. for reaching back out to him and reviving an old relationship.

It became very clear that Adolfo wasn’t necessarily the best representative of the Bolivian culture because he is very far from the norm of society. Although with that said I think it was very interesting to read between the lines and get a great look into the wealthy Bolivian culture. Adolfo is a very proud person and came off very arrogant and cocky in the interview but that could have been because he was trying to show off to an old friend. Adolfo’s life is centered on the party scene and that doesn’t mean that he lives for the weekends I mean he stays out at the clubs until sunrise 6 nights out of the week. It was crazy to think that his lifestyle sounded exactly like all of the rap songs or movies we see now a-days like Project X. Adolfo is very much a spoon fed and spoiled rich kid but the weird thing is he knows it and isn’t ashamed to say it. If you look at the Iceberg model use it to explain Adolfo Nayar it would look like this: on the surface of Adolfo you would see wealth and lifestyle but under that in the more intermediate level you would see pride and family and even deeper than that you would see the desire to step out of his dad’s shadow but for now he is too scared to try. Adolfo is living a life of denial and really doesn’t want to graduate college because then he will be on his own and won’t be able to keep buying the Rolex’s and paying for $1,000 bar tabs. The Bolivian culture is very misrepresented by the Nayar family because of how much of an outlier they are and it is interesting to note that Adolfo isn’t willing to break out of his shell. I was expecting to hear about some crazy stories but wasn’t anticipating on finding out just how much Adolfo relies on his dad’s checkbook to remain popular. Adolfo sort of reminds me of Barney from “How I met your Mother” in the sense that he always is in pursuit of making the next story LEGENDARY.  In further analysis of my interview with Adolfo Nayar I realized that not even for Adolfo is the party scene really cutting it. I got the sense that he is empty inside and really just wanted to step out of the shadow of his dad and settle down with a wife and hopefully be half as successful as dad. Adolfo missed me as a friend because I wasn’t his friend because he paid for my bar tab or he bought me a cool present but because I thought he was a fun guy to be around and that is what Adolfo doesn’t have access to because of how he lives his life. Adolfo’s national identity was that of the Attorney General’s son, which gave him the persona of a rich kid but yet his ethnic identity, of a Bolivian, gives him the persona of a citizen in a chaotic country that doesn’t have nearly as many rights as Americans do. To define Adolfo’s cultural identity in one phrase would be Rich Bolivian but there is so much more to him than his wealth, I just wish he would show the world. After looking back at the text of the interview a few days later I realized that Adolfo spoke from the basis of a very high context communication stand point, meaning that there was always more to what he said than just the denotative meaning of the words. He always had a motive for anything that he said and usually the motive was to make him look as awesome as possible. In conclusion, it seemed to me that Adolfo feels larger than life but is worried that he won’t be able to keep up the pace he set for himself but isn’t willing to slow down. I feel like Adolfo represents a lot of kids that have extremely wealthy parents in the sense that he hasn’t had to work for very much in his life and it is starting to kick him in the butt because he doesn’t know what good hard honest work actually is. Adolfo will never have to work for food if he doesn’t want to and he is ok with that. If it were me personally I couldn’t stand mooching off of my parents but I think that is a very big difference between Adolfo and myself; I strive for change and personal success achieved on my own while Adolfo just wants his family to provide everything for him because it is a lot easier.

P.S. I can relate tons of crazy stories of Adolfo from when he was in America and from what he has told me about Bolivia if there is interest but as far as this interview goes it took about 30 minutes over facebook and It was mostly Adolfo bragging about all of the crazy stuff he has done since he was in Minnesota last. Feel free to ask me about some of the stories Adolfo talked about because they are really interesting and funny.