Long Day in Bolivia

It was the longest day yet. For almost twelve hours--from 9:30 am until almost 9:30pm--the Plaza San Francisco and the area surrounding it were filled with people. A reported 100,000 protesters occupied the streets and squares of La Paz today, paralyzing the city.  They came from around the country, though the largest and strongest contingents were once again from El Alto and the Altiplano.  They marched the length of the Prado, around the Plaza Murillo and extended out to normally untouched regions of the city, creating a feeling that the capital of Bolivia was now under the control of the politicized masses.   For me, the day was too long and too full to offer you anything more than disparate images and sensations: the masses of still divided marches filling the streets for miles;  the deep red of the Aymara men's panchos making their way towards the Plaza Murillo;  the tear gas laden air that never had a chance to fully clear; campesinos in the streets and plazas of Sopocachi, the middle/upper class neighborhood that normally remains protester-free;  the rhythmic sway of the pulleras (Aymara traditional skirts) as the Altiplano women walked in the straight lines of the march that for hours flooded the entryway into La Paz from El Alto; hearing chants that almost uniformly called for nationalization; watching men take large stones from base of the Plaza San Francisco to form a road block at the base of the Altipista (the highway between La Paz and El Alto); the nodding heads of companeros as rumors were confirmed that El Alto was in a total paro and that blockades were multiplying; realizing I can now distinguish between the sound of dynamite shot into the air, tear gas canisters erupting and dynamite exploding on the ground; using my Bolivia Indymedia press pass to coast past the police barricades and ascend into the contested Plaza Murillo; the tranquility of the government plaza into which only press and government have access; the worried expression on the face of the MAS congressman with whom Luis and I had coffee; watching Evo and other Parliamentarians chat on the floor of Congress waiting for the session to be convened while their constituencies were being repelled by rubber bullets blocks away; the palpable absence of the President of the Senate and an entire contingent of Senators and Congressmen who don't want to allow the scheduled vote on the Constitutional Assembly to take place; the angry and vociferous reactions of the leftist congressmen when it was decided there were not enough Parliamentarians to convene a session; nighttime in the Plaza San Francisco with glass on the street, a large rut dug the width of the road a few meters away from the still-standing stone blockade that I saw erected, rubber bullet injured protesters being put into an ambulance and riot cops on motorcycles dispersing the remaining few with even more gas...

The people came out in force today and I assume they will keep coming. As such, I have no idea what tomorrow will bring.