Road Blocks

The political situation is never dull in Santa Cruz. For the past month or so, civic organizations (mostly politicized groups of peasants farmers), have been blocking the major highways going in and out of the city of Santa Cruz. Currently 3 of the 4 exits out of down are completely blocked. The road to Argentina (where all of our diesel comes from), the road to Brazil, and the road to La Paz, which goes on into Chile and Peru. These diverse groups are demanding a variety of things from the government and refuse lift the road block until their demands are met. The government is hesitant to use military force because they want to avoid violence at all costs. In the mean time, our work has been greatly disrupted because we cannot travel out to the projects. Also, many imported goods are becoming scarce. The local paper is predicting that the city will be completely out of diesel by this weekend, even further paralyzing the commerce. I will wait in line to fill our tank up this evening (we drive a diesel Nissan Patrol SUV), and try to make this last tank full stretch as far as I can.