Diego's Pride

by Deborah Ellis

  The protesters shook their heads.

  This went on for awhile longer, with more gestures and more discussions. Then the captain shook hands all around again and walked back to the line of cars.

  ‘Let’s get this traffic turned around,’ he said.

  ‘Where to?’

  ‘Back to that village,’ the captain said. ‘A lot of people sitting out here in cars with nothing to do but get angry is not going to help anything. Move.’

  The soldiers had been trained to do many things, but traffic control was not one of them. Arguments broke out among the drivers and among the soldiers, with everyone adding to the noise with their own complaints and curses. Parents chased after children who had escaped from the cars during their long wait. Crates of chickens squawked and went crazy when one of the crates fell off the truck and broke open, sending birds in all directions. The line of vehicles became hopelessly confused and Diego, with a front-row seat in the back of the pick-up, enjoyed every minute. For a long while, everything the army tried to do to fix the problem only made it worse.

  The captain looked completely humiliated at the incompetence of his men, and he finally called a halt to everything so they could meet and come up with a workable plan. After that the soldiers worked together and the cars were turned back.

  With the cars and trucks gone, the stretch of highway became quieter. Even the chants of the protesters faded a bit. It was as though everyone needed a bit of a breather so they could be ready for whatever would happen next.

  The military trucks and jeeps now spread themselves out to cover both lanes of the highway. They became another blockade. The two blockades were facing each other.

  The captain went into the middle of the road and put his hands up for quiet. The protesters stopped their chants so that they could hear what he had to say.

  ‘We have just made the area safer for you,’ he said. ‘We did this because we don’t want anything bad to happen here. You are Bolivian, and we are Bolivian. I am sure that we can come to some agreement.’

  ‘Give us back our coca!’ shouted one of the protesters. This resulted in cheers and several minutes of chants. The captain waited until they settled down again.

  ‘You know I cannot do that. You ask me for something impossible. That’s not the way to negotiate. We have made this area safe for you to protest. In return, I would like you to limit your protest to one hour.’

  This brought such a wave of laughter and jeers that Diego almost felt sorry for the captain.

  ‘Bolivia does not have many highways,’ the captain shouted, trying to make himself heard. ‘Trucks and buses do not have choices. Think of commerce, think of the economy! Think of people needing to get from one place to another. If you shut down the road, you shut down a lot of Bolivia.’

  The chants drowned him out.

  ‘We should just shoot them,’ said the soldier standing next to Diego. ‘Why does he waste time like this?’

  ‘You’re an idiot,’ said Diego. ‘You’ll never keep a girlfriend.’ He knew from spending time in the men’s prison that this was a good way to insult another man. He got a swat on the side of his head for the remark, but it was worth it.

  ‘There must be something you want that I can give you,’ shouted the captain as soon as he had the chance.

  ‘You took away a boy yesterday,’ someone shouted. ‘We want him back.’

  ‘That’s what this is about? The boy? You can have him.’ The captain took big quick strides to the truck where Diego was standing and lifted him to the ground.

  He put his arm around Diego’s shoulder and marched him to the line of protesters so quickly that there was no time for Diego to agree or disagree.

  Mrs Ricardo jumped out of the line, crying and hugging Diego as if he was her very own son. Mr Ricardo was there, too, and Santo and Martino. Even Bonita looked happy to see him, although she turned her face away as soon as she saw Diego look at her.

  A space was made for Diego in the first line of the blockade, right beside Mrs Ricardo. He gave her the bundle of empanadas, which she passed to someone else, to be shared out later. She put her arm around him, and he nestled right into her, not caring that he was a little too old to have such a fuss made over him. He liked the fuss.

  ‘You’ve got the boy,’ the captain said. ‘Now we need to clear this highway.’

  ‘We need our coca back,’ came the shout. The chants started again.

  Diego joined in. It was fun to yell and chant, and maybe the chants would work. The captain would get fed up and return their coca. The Ricardos could sell their crop. Then Diego would have his share of the money, and he could go home.

  The captain stood in the road for a few minutes trying to calm things down, but the chanting took on a life of its own. Diego yelled and slapped his knees, keeping time with the rhythm of the chants. He helped Santo, in Mrs Ricardo’s lap, clap along to the beat.

  The captain turned away and walked back to his men. He held a brief meeting with his sergeants, then climbed up on to the back of his jeep in the middle of the road.

  The chanting was so loud that Diego didn’t hear the first order. He just saw the rifles come out and up as the men went into firing position.

  The chanting stopped almost instantly. Around him everyone became very still. Mrs Ricardo handed Santo to someone who took him behind the barricade, and Mr Ricardo pushed Martino to the back. Diego could hear other small children back there laughing and playing some little kid game. He heard birds singing. And he saw the soldiers, their fingers on triggers, ready to shoot.

  ‘This highway must be cleared!’ the captain shouted into the silence. ‘I’m going to count to ten. We don’t want to do this! I’ve asked you to move. If anyone gets hurt, you have brought it on yourselves.’

  Diego glanced at the faces of the people beside him. He saw fear, but no one moved.

  ‘One!’ shouted the captain.

  ‘Bonita, get to the back,’ her father ordered.

  ‘No,’ Bonita said, taking hold of her father’s hand.

  ‘Two!’ shouted the captain.

  ‘Diego, take Bonita to the back,’ Mr Ricardo said.

  Diego, wanting to obey, put his hand on Bonita’s arm but took it off again when he was hit with her glare.

  ‘Three!’

  Diego sat back down on the line between Mrs Ricardo and a man he didn’t know. Mrs Ricardo clasped Diego’s hand in hers. Diego held the hand of the man sitting on the other side of him. He didn’t know the man’s name, but they were friends now.

  The captain kept shouting numbers, loudly and slowly.

  ‘Six!’

  Diego heard people whisper the Hail Mary. He was too angry to pray.

  At ‘Eight!’ one of the soldiers lowered his rifle.

  ‘Captain,’ he said, ‘I can’t shoot these people. My own village is not far from here. Arrest me if you want, but I won’t shoot.’ He jumped down off his truck and laid his rifle on the ground.

  ‘Me, too, Captain,’ another private said. Half a dozen men put their rifles on the ground.

  The count never got to ten.

  ‘Lower your weapons!’ the captain ordered. ‘I don’t get paid enough to do this, and neither do you. Someone higher up can take responsibility. Back in the trucks.’

  The men jumped back into the pick-up trucks, the motors were started, and one by one the convoy turned around and drove back down the highway.

  The blockade erupted in a roar. Cheers and singing, hugging and dancing. Bonita even hugged Diego until she realised what she was doing and pushed him away.

  ‘They will be back,’ an old woman said when the celebration had calmed down a bit. ‘We know they will be back, and we must be ready. Back to work.’

  Always, there was work. It was the one thing in life Diego could count on. Luckily he liked work, and he plunged right in, making himself useful.

  SIX

  ‘How did you find me?’ Diego asked Mr Ricardo as they worked together
dragging a huge branch out of the forest.

  ‘We didn’t,’ said Mr Ricardo. ‘We were just lucky.’

  ‘What would you have done if they hadn’t let me go?’ Diego asked.

  ‘Why in the world would they want to keep you?’ asked Bonita, coming along just in time to insult him. She helped them drag the branch onto the highway. ‘We’ll need a lot more than this,’ she said, almost scolding Diego and her father for taking a moment to catch their breath. She went back into the forest ahead of them.

  ‘Was she always like this?’ Diego asked.

  ‘Always,’ said Mr Ricardo, smiling. ‘My Bonita will be president of Bolivia one day.’

  Diego didn’t stop to consider whether that would be a good thing or a bad thing. He just got back to work.

  A short while later a meeting was called. A man stood up to speak.

  ‘It has been suggested that we move the blockade two hundred meters down the highway and take over the bridge. What does everybody think?’

  This was the first of many, many meetings Diego was a part of. Everything needed to be discussed and voted on, and everyone – or so it seemed to Diego – had an opinion. This took some time, but in the end everyone agreed to move the blockade.

  The bridge was long, stretching high over a wide, deep valley where a shallow river ran through it on a rocky bed. Hills of deep green forest rose up at each end, the south end of the highway flowing straight, then curving gently to the side. At the north end of the bridge, the highway rose up into a hill, then swerved around to follow the course of the river.

  The bridge gave the protesters a good vantage point. They could easily see what was coming from both directions.

  They moved in groups, taking branches and blockade material down the hill with them. Some went ahead to clear the bridge of the cars that were already there, getting the drivers to move on through so that they’d be out of the way. Diego heard some curses, but also some calls of good luck from the drivers who were allowed to leave the bridge and continue north.

  Once they were on the bridge, some protesters went right down to the south end and began setting up the blockade there, first by standing in the road, then with logs and branches as more people joined them. Diego ran up and down the highway, carrying and dragging things to the bridge, then dashing back to get another armful. He smiled at people he didn’t know, and they smiled back.

  Diego and the others went into the woods at the south end and carried branches and old logs to the bridge from the forest floor.

  He had just dragged his third branch across the south end of the bridge when a call went up to reinforce the north end. Diego rushed to the far end of the bridge with the others. Cars were beginning to gather on the other side. One of the drivers was trying to push his way through the blockade. He leaned on the horn of his shiny red sports car and stuck his head out the window, cursing the protesters and trying to hit any of them who came close.

  The cocaleros formed a solid wall of people in front of the car. Diego banged his fist on the hood the way some of the others were doing to get the driver to stop and turn around.

  Still the driver moved forward. ‘Get out of my way or I’ll step on the gas. I don’t care how many of you peasants I kill!’

  The driver was of Spanish background, with pale skin. He was not Quechua or Aymara. He and his clothes were shiny and bright, just like his car. He was from another world in Bolivia, the world with money.

  The cocalero men leaned on his car, shouting for him to stop, trying to force him to go back.

  ‘I’ll kill you!’ he shouted. ‘Lousy coca chewers. I’ll run you all down!’

  Diego saw one of the young cocaleros, a man wearing a black baseball cap, take a small knife from the top of his boot. He went around to the driver’s window and held the knife up to the man’s face, grinning.

  ‘Go ahead,’ taunted the driver. ‘Do it! You don’t have the guts. Bloody cowards. Bloody cocaleros!’ He spat the word, turning a proud label into a curse.

  Diego saw the young man smile, give his knife blade a kiss, then kneel down out of sight. In the next instant, Diego heard the szzzt of air escaping from a tire.

  There were cheers, and the other three tires were also quickly slashed as the young cocalero walked around the car from one tire to the other.

  Still, the driver insisted on going forward. The protesters let him, laughing as they made way for him to roll on to the bridge on tires that flopped and wobbled on the wheel rims. In the middle of the bridge he gave up, shutting off the motor and grabbing the keys.

  ‘Somebody will pay for this!’ he shouted, getting out of his car.

  He left the bridge, on foot.

  Some of the young men were excited by the fine, sleek car. They ran their hands over the smooth metal and started to argue over who could sit in the driver’s seat. They opened the glove compartment and honked the horn. Being so close to such an expensive car made them forget why they were on the blockade in the first place.

  Mrs Ricardo and other women had their say.

  ‘Pull the car off the bridge,’ they ordered. ‘It does not help us to have it here, and it will give people an excuse to attack us. We are farmers, not thugs or thieves. Give the man back his car.’

  It took a bit of persuading, but the young men obeyed. Ropes were attached, the car was put into neutral gear, and the cocaleros formed themselves into pushers and pullers.

  Diego tried to get a spot as a pusher, but there was no room, so he scrambled to the other end of the car, took hold of a rope and pulled.

  The car inched its way up the little hills that led away from the bridge. It was almost like the processions Diego had seen around the cathedral in Cochabamba during Holy Week, although with a rich man’s car instead of a statue of the Virgin Mary.

  They pushed and they pulled until they reached a spot where the car wouldn’t roll. Then they stripped away the useless tires. Two tires went to one end of the bridge. Two went to the other.

  ‘We need rocks,’ someone said. ‘There are lots of rocks down by the river.’

  On each side of the bridge there was a pathway that led down to the river. The protesters split up so that rocks could be brought up both sides.

  Diego picked his way down the steep river bank to find a place in line. Rocks were passed from hand to hand like great rock snakes on each side of the river. Diego spotted Bonita working on the other side, and before his brain could stop it, his arm moved and he waved to her.

  He almost dropped a rock on his foot when she waved back.

  Diego lifted rocks until his arms and shoulders were burning with pain. Then he kept going until his legs were sore, too. He could have stepped out of line and taken a break – many did, old and young – but Bonita wasn’t breaking, so of course neither did he.

  Finally the call came that there were enough rocks for now. The climb up the hill was painful. Diego needed a helping hand from one of the others. He hoped Bonita couldn’t see.

  ‘What happens now?’ he asked someone.

  ‘We wait,’ he was told. ‘The government can’t leave this highway blockaded forever. There’s no other way to get to Santa Cruz. They will have to give in to our demands.’

  Up on the bridge, people were breaking into groups.

  ‘We have formed committees,’ Mr Ricardo told Diego. ‘Do you know what committees are?’

  ‘Sure,’ he said. ‘My mother is on three committees in her prison. She says it’s the committees that get things done, and all the guards do is keep people locked up.’

  ‘We get things done here in committees, too,’ Mr Ricardo said. ‘We need certain things to happen, like food and security and shelter, so we form committees to do those things. Otherwise it would be hard to figure out what to do, because we would all be trying to do everything.’

  Diego was certainly old enough to join a committee. He leaned against the railing of the bridge while Mr Ricardo explained what the different committees were doing.
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br />   ‘Over there is the sign-painting committee. They are deciding what the signs and banners should say, and then they will paint the slogans on sheets and boards.’

  ‘Where will they get the paint?’ Diego asked.

  ‘I’m coming to that,’ Mr Ricardo said. ‘There is also a food committee that will plan and prepare food for all of us. The security committee will find people to stand watch, and the communications committee is meeting now to draft a message that we can give to the press. You can be on that committee even if you can’t read. You can speak your thoughts and someone will write them down.’

  Diego thought that committee sounded like too much talking.

  Mr Ricardo went on. ‘The construction committee will build latrines. There’s an education committee, a daycare committee and a medical committee. And that’s just to start,’ Mr Ricardo grinned. ‘The work gets spread around so nobody has to do too much, and everybody feels they are a part of things.’

  Diego looked at the groups of farming families talking together all over the bridge.

  ‘Where do they get the paint?’ he asked again.

  ‘That’s the job of the runners committee,’ Mr Ricardo said. ‘They find things we need, and they run errands for the other committees.’

  ‘That sounds like the place for me,’ Diego said. ‘Can you be on more than one committee?’

  ‘You can, if you can keep your commitments. People will be counting on you, so don’t take on more than you know you can do. What other committee interests you?’

  ‘The security committee,’ Diego said. ‘Standing watch. Isn’t that a little like being on guard?’

  Mr Ricardo smiled again. ‘It’s very much like being on guard.’

  ‘Guard Diego,’ Diego said. He laughed with Mr Ricardo, then the two of them got back to work.

  SEVEN

  As Diego worked, the bridge was transformed into a village.

  With no one in charge barking orders, no one standing over people to make them work, no one bossing anyone else, the cocaleros decided among themselves what needed to be done and how to do it.

  Mr Ricardo was part of the security committee. He and the other members were very businesslike and got to the heart of the matter without a lot of discussion.