Wednesday, July 28, 2010

We Would Have Met


Subject: We Would Have Met
From: Ali Boyd
Date: July 28, 2010 12:13:20 AM EDT
To: Dean Chahim

Dear Dean,
We would have met Sunday in a tiny pueblo with only one phone. I would have been standing next to the plaza, in between the tourist office and the replica of a dinosaur. We would have not even mentioned the dinosaur, because, it was of course normal. (This is Toro Toro, famous for its prolific dinosaur footprints). I would have seen you first because I was facing the exit from the main road as I waited. I met Claudia when she asked me, without an introduction, if I had been into the cave yet. I would have told you, as I told her, that yes we went the day before. After formal introductions, we would talk logistics - where we work, where we live, where we stayed in Toro Toro, what time we were leaving. I would have told the same antecodoate about waking up in a sketchy hostal, 5 of us sharing 3 beds, and finding another man in the bed reserved for our driver, Ricardo.

We could have laughed about the absurdity of a $5 room and the stranger we did not pay for, and then left to go talk Bolivian politics. I could ask you if you saw the abandoned houses flanking the Santa Cruz road. Our conversation could have played out effortlessly. "Did you read the El Diario article about the police forcefully evicting the squatters? The pictures were so intense! It looked like a war zone, with all the tear gas and riot gear! What do you think about squatters rights? The Landless Workers' Movement?"

But, we did not meet Sunday. In your place, I met your Engineers Without Borders posse and a friendly girl named Claudia. Maybe one day we can line up time zones and I won't have to explain that we have yet to meet, frente a frente, that we have only worked for Beyond Good Intentions. This "six degrees theory" is starting to seem like a joke -

Until then, we will continue sharing the Latin America we love so much,
Ali

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