Getting Closer: From Dunkin Donuts to Free Trade Zones

Day One

Shortly after landing in Iquique we realized that the best move would be to take one of the daily Bolivian buses heading late at night towards the border. Discarded were the ad hoc plans to spend the night eating and drinking merrily with my uncle Ronald Rauld who lives in Playa Brava at the southern end of the city. Catching up with my uncle and his wife Pepa was scrapped and replaced by a brief visit to the local supermarket to stock up on essentials (ie. Sahne Nuss Chocolate, crackers, nuts, wine, and chumbeque!) before our 9 pm departure into the Andes. But just a few hours before, back in Santiago, we had spent a couple of memorable moments at the Arturo Merino Benitez International airport just prior to departure. Thanks to the wonders of the neoliberal concessionary system of building large things that otherwise can't be built with money we don't understand, this particular airport facility, the same one that welcomed the entire APEC squad, is actually one of the most modern in all of south america and it is complete with its own internal Dunkin Donuts and Starbucks Coffee. To our surprise, our checking-in process lasted just a few short minutes, and so we were suddenly confronted with a giant monster of spare time which hung over us like a lemon tree, and which, in a certain sense, pressured us into spending it wisely and responsibly. We decided immediately, then, to bug the nice gift shop attendants who seemed busy enough not to appreciate it tremendously.

I was curious about the latest headline on the La Tercera front-page. At this point, the entire world was wondering what the fuck was wrong with Fidel Castro who had suddenly gone off the radar screen leaving the entire world fumbling with the question: "uh, what's wrong with Fidel Castro?" And other questions as well: "What the hell is 'Diverticulitis'? Well, La Tercera decided to run that headline and I thought it strange to include a word that only a doctor living in the Amazon might know after consulting his medical books which were back at home anyway, especially since the idea was to clarify Fidel's medical condition, not cloud it even further. In any case, we would later catch up with Fidel, or at least his legacy, in La Paz for his 80th birthday. It served as a foreshadowing type of moment in a novel that has yet to be written. So the nice attendants didn't have a clue but they did talk to me about their job and how far they had to travel just to work there, etc. We walked around in circles a few times, admiring the towering suitcase art, before heading in for our mediocre full-body inspection.
Once on the "inside", we were free to relax at the Dunkin Donuts. I had never seen such a high-tech and elaborately staged on-line cashier system, complete with debit card pin-punching thingy. I must say I was a little surprised when the woman gave me three receipts for my purchase, which was essentially two donuts, one with manjar and another with blue things on it. Very bizarre, but that didn't stop Tomas Dinges from building a strong relationship with the lady who had just completed my transaction. He started to have a philosophical conversation, no less, about donut dough and then went into sharing his crazy idea for donuts made from "sopaipilla" dough. I think in the end he succeeded in his mission to find a business partner for his elaborate sopaipilla donut empire. I insisted that a donut with sopaipilla dough just equals a sopaipilla, and if you start putting colorful and sweet things on a fried, salty, pumpkin-like mass of dough, people are bound to start throwing up. Perhaps on a street cart, where you can sell anything and people will eat it, but as a business idea I though it was a stretch.

Meanwhile Natalia Smith was calling her father to let him know she was going to Bolivia. There didn't seem to be anyone home so she left a message. Back at the table, the three of us began to talk about random things.

Airports

Airports are incredibly unusual places in that you're literally nowhere, especially once you've moved passed the "security" area. You're no longer really in the city of departure and you're not exactly at your place of destination either, and you're in what is essentially a holding cell. You can't go anywhere, time is relative. Planes become like beacons of hope (you stare at them with awe through the window), and only one of them will take you safely out if this nowhere place and back into lineal time in the real world. So, the only truth that exists is making sure you get on your plane.

Everything in an airport, therefore, is extremely controlled, everybody sits very close to the gate, waiting, sometimes eating donuts and coffee, sometimes shopping at the duty free, but always with one foot at the gate, wouldn't want to miss your reason to exist! Everything is clean and well organized. Sometimes you run into people who actually work there, cleaning or selling "travel items", and you automatically feel sorry for them because they're forced to remain nowhere for such a long time. And you know that this safety line between passengers and their planes, which holds people together and prevents chaos from ensuing, is incredibly fragile. You know this as soon as this line is slightly altered in some way.

You hear a mysteriously soothing female voice, as if God herself were talking to you personally, and this voice kindly tells you that your gate has been changed to another gate which automatically sounds distant, unfamiliar, exotic even. Well, that's when you start to panic. As if you've already lost your plane!

"No chance in hell I'm gonna find this mysterious new gate!"

People at this point enter into a state of delirium and start to do things they don't usually do, like talk to other people or run. The plane! What will become of me!?

Waiting for Guffman?

Latin America has been in an airport holding cell for quite a long time. It is not exactly traditional (pre-industrial, pre-economic, underdeveloped, or primitive), but it's also not exactly modern (industrial, advanced or developed). It is nowhere. The only thing it knows is that it has to get on an airplane that will transport it to the beautiful destination shown on the monitors throughout the airport. There are signs everywhere, some are in English, some in Chinese, others in Russian, they all explain just how to get to the correct gate. But Latin America, who happens to be a good listener, has followed them all and has never made it. It sits next to a Dunkin Donuts waiting for the next announcement and the next set of instructions.

What if there is no gate? What if there is no plane? What if Dunkin Donuts, Starbucks Coffee and gift shops is as good as it gets?

I wonder if it's a coincidence that airport holding cells are looking more and more like American Malls. It might not be. In any case, Natalia Smith, Tomas Dinges and I are heading to Bolivia, a country that has been robbed, beaten, and raped while waiting around for its connection. Judging by the reports, it seems as if Bolivians have finally decided to find a different mode of transportation. Perhaps their buses are getting dirtier and the smell of urine is intensifying as the driver turns corners a little too violently, but at least they seem to be going places, and everybody seems to have an equal shot at getting on board even if there aren't any seats left.

Bolivia: Fugaz Pero Notable

During the first part of August 2006, Natalia Smith, Tomas Dinges and I embarked on a fugaz journey into the Bolivian altiplanico. Our goal was to take a closer look at our neighbor to the north and discover for ourselves just how ordinary Bolivians feel about what's going on in their country, about what many analysts have characterized as a new kind of revolution. Presided over by Bolivia's first freely elected indigenous leader, Evo Morales, this "process" has sparked the attention of people all over the world. Although the images of this uncharacteristic leader who (roam where he may) breaks presidential protocols with his designer sweaters and leather jackets have transformed him into some sort of political celebrity on CNN, the cultural and political movement that he represents to some extent often goes overlooked. Obviously, his close ties to Venezuela's Hugo Chavez and Cuba's Fidel Castro, his recent decision to nationalize Bolivia's natural gas resources, as well as his new stamps, have kept him in the international headlines, but the talk of the town almost always seems to be focused on his persona, and never on the impact his mere presence makes on Bolivians or in the region, or further yet, on what his election has meant historically. This sort of political sensationalization or cult of personality treatment on behalf of the mainstream media is not unusual by any means, it just accentuates the need for alternative media and journalism to go after the real story. Which is what we've tried to do, starting with our first trip, which was focused on the constitutional assembly and its repercussions in the altiplanico. More trips will follow, surely, but for now the goal is to transmit the initial impression Bolivia and its "process" have left on us...

Anthony Rauld
Santiago, Chile