Journey to Jail, part two

We handed over to the immi­gra­tion con­trol offi­cers what iden­ti­fi­ca­tion doc­u­ments we had eas­ily acces­si­ble. We weren’t entirely sure, frankly, that they were in fact offi­cers. They didn’t vol­un­teer their own ID readily.

Our lack of enthu­si­asm com­bined with our insuf­fi­cient ID inspired the two offi­cers to morph into four as they led us deeper into the terminal.

“Where are your passports?”

“Where are you from?”

“What are you doing here?”

“Why are you in Bolivia?”

I answered their ques­tions. I asked to be able to look for my father, who was some­where in the bus ter­mi­nal look­ing for us. This was ignored, beyond:

“Who is your father?”

“Why is he here?”

I rat­tled off the names and iden­ti­fi­ca­tion num­bers of both my par­ents, as well as our address. Nothing. I told them repeat­edly, “I LIVE in Cochabamba. This is my home. My address is…!” They ignored me.

Two or three other offi­cers walked up behind us. Katherine and I were surrounded.

They handed me a paper to sign.

“What is this?”

“It says that we have your documents.”

“What hap­pens if I sign it?”

“You can walk nor­mally [’cam­i­nar nor­mal’] until Monday morn­ing when you show us your other doc­u­ments. Then you can have these back.”

We stalled, try­ing to get  more answers from them. Nothing. Just old questions.

“How long have you been in Bolivia?”

Answering their ques­tions had thus far done noth­ing, so I tried, “I’m sorry, I don’t under­stand much Spanish.”

The lead offi­cer snorted. He told the oth­ers, “They have no papers. They’re Illegal.”

“What do you think I’m going to do?”

“Nothing. Sign the paper.”

Katherine pointed out that all they’d be get­ting was her pho­to­copy and my driver’s license if we signed.

I asked again, “What hap­pens if we sign this?”

“You may go and walk away nor­mally and we keep your doc­u­ments until Monday.”

“Fine!” I scrib­bled a sig­na­ture angrily and tore off the top copy — my copy — and reached out to hand them back their copy and pen. “You may have them!”

“YOU can­not tear it! You can­not have it!” A woman ripped all copies and the pen from my hands. The man added, “You are going to the office.” They began to lead us away.

“You told me that if I signed that then I could walk away.”

“You yelled.”

“I did not yell. I am tired. You told me that if I signed then I could walk normally.”

“You are going to the immi­gra­tion office.”

“Where is the office?”

“Here.”

“The office is here? Where here?”

“Here.”

We were, by then, at a back door to the out­side of the ter­mi­nal. Police were waiting.

“You said it was here. Why are we outside?”

The mil­i­tary police took con­trol of us. A female police offi­cer was push­ing my right shoul­der, lead­ing me towards an unmarked SUV. Katherine was behind us, also being led forward.

“What is this car?”

“Get in,” she said.

“Where are we going?”

“To the office.”

“They told me we could go if I signed a paper. I signed the paper. Then they told me I had to go to the office and that the office is here. Now we are leav­ing? To where?”

“The office. Get in the car.”

Katherine saw Dad’s car in the park­ing lot and pointed it out to me. I tried to get the police to talk to him.

“Look! That is my father’s car. He is inside and he will be wor­ried. Please let’s find him inside and ask him about this.”

“You can call him at the office. GET IN THE CAR.”

As I got into the car I responded firmly, “This is not safe.”

They laughed.

We were pushed, albeit gen­tly, into the back of the unmarked SUV. They drove us to the office located on El Prado. During the drive, one of the men in the front made a phone call, in which he said, “We have them. Six gringas from Chile.” Katherine and I were the only two gringas in the car. We were led inside and quizzed again. They called my mother at home and allowed me to talk to her. I filled her in and told her that we’d need legal help.

After a bit, one of the immi­gra­tion offi­cers stood in front of us, leaned back against the wall, and asked, “Are you more tran­quil now?”

“I was tran­quil, and I am still tran­quil. I was and am con­fused. They said if I signed the paper I could walk nor­mally. They said the office was there. These things did not happen.”

He chuck­led and shrugged, “Sometimes they mis­com­mu­ni­cate the full process.”

I asked him what would next hap­pen. He stated that, “You will show us your doc­u­ments. Or, we can hold you for eight hours. Then you will go to jail.”

He was stand­ing below a poster which por­trayed notable vic­tims of racism in Bolivian his­tory. My white skin could sym­pa­thize with the darker tones of the pho­tographed vic­tims of Bolivia’s past.

Katherine and I waited in the hall of the office until some­one arrived. A dear friend of the fam­ily, who hap­pens to be — with­out exag­ger­a­tion — the world’s lead­ing expert on Bolivian law, entered the build­ing. He walked straight into the office and con­versed with the inspec­tor. He appar­ently had us released into his parole cus­tody, and he then deliv­ered us back to my home.

This is where we stand:
Katherine and I must be at the immi­gra­tion office at 8:30 Monday morn­ing. Katherine will show her pass­port, estab­lish­ing her­self as a legal tourist, and will be absolutely fine. For her this is a mere for­mal­ity and her parole will be lifted. No prob­lems, no records, absolutely no worries!

My sit­u­a­tion is more complicated.

I have no pass­port to show, because Rita the Travel Agent has it. Dad and I went to Rita’s office on Saturday. She has promised to be avail­able at her office at 8:00 in order to be picked up by us to go with us to immi­gra­tion at 8:30. She absolutely must be there. If she skips out then a plan is in place to solve the sit­u­a­tion. Our legal adviser, bless him, is pos­i­tive that he can trans­fer my parole cus­tody over to my father and can pre­vent me from going to jail. What hap­pens Monday hinges largely on what­ever Rita does — whether she appears, whether she still has my doc­u­men­ta­tion after lying to me for nearly two years… and whether she has been behav­ing legally.

The ques­tions for Monday are how much money I will have to pay the gov­ern­ment of Bolivia — for her fail­ure to pro­cure me a legal visa — and whether I can stay in Bolivia at all.

The pri­mary goal, of course, is to stay out of jail and, as Katherine puts it, refrain from becom­ing someone’s buttmonkey.

But I’d really like to stay in Bolivia, too, thank you.

Side note: all of this drama has been mur­der on my work — on which I WAS ahead of sched­ule! I’m madly try­ing to get every­thing fin­ished and sub­mit­ted on time with class dead­lines. There will likely be a delay before I get to update the results of Monday morn­ing, and delays will not mean that I’m a jail-stuck buttmon­key. Schoolwork is the pri­or­ity, writing-wise.