Being counted as part of history

On Wednesday 21^st November, we witnessed and became part of a little piece of history in Bolivia. For the first time in 11 years, the Bolivian government decided to conduct a census to determine the size and demographic of the population.

The entire population was confined by law to their homes for 12 hours, and any person found on the streets without at permit was swiftly arrested and detained. In all between 300 and 400 people were arrested for breaking the curfew in the whole of Bolivia which, as a number of people pointed out to me, is probably less than are drunkenly arrested on an average Saturday night in England’s towns and cities.

It was a very strange experience; you think to yourself, ah great, a quiet day to go for a walk (can’t do this), get some shopping done (can’t do this either) or maybe grab some food (nor this). Ironically it would have been extremely special to be able to walk the streets had we been allowed: to see the capital city of a country completely devoid of people, cars and buses, with only stray dogs wandering the streets, it would have looked almost post-apocalyptic.

  

We began to feel slightly claustrophobic in the stuffy house and then in the early evening we were treated to one of La Paz’s spectacular thunder storms. With panoramic lightening, deafening thunder and torrential rain it was a spectacle to watch so we opened up all the windows on one side of the house and sat down to watch the show. Because of the way La Paz is situated in the ‘bowl’ of Andes Mountains, the almost daily storms are especially impressive to witness. It was certainly the most entertaining thing we saw that day!

The census was quite widely criticised across the country for a number of reasons including being accused of having poorly thought out questions, which, after talking to some of the locals questioned I would potentially have to agree with. The idea of the census was to gain a better understanding of the demographic and lifestyle of the population in order to create more effective government policy. However without asking the right questions that goal is lost to merely counting the population and causing an awful lot of inconvenience in people’s lives. Whether the questions were an effective use of 200,000 data collectors and 35,000 policemen’s time, as well as a temporarily halted economy, is yet to be seen. However from the point of view of a foreigner caught in the middle all I can say is it will probably (hopefully) be the only time in my life I will be subject to a military police curfew.