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<DOCID>In_a_Country_Far,_Far,_Away..Volume_2.doc.txt</DOCID>
<AUTHOR>John Petkus</AUTHOR>
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As most of you know the first issue this year included an article written by yours truly concerning a certain South American country which I had the pleasure of visiting while on Winter Break. The country name is Bolivia. Ring any bells? If you have no idea what I am talking about, you need to find a copy of issue 14 of the Compass or read it on our website at http://compass.lssu.edu/content/view/436/. In there you will find what I am talking about. This is the second part of that series. If you cant find the first part, and are lost, go to the Compass office and bug the people there. Eventually, they will help you out, (theyre cool like that).

I will begin this article where the other ended off. If you remember correctly, the country of Bolivia had just been formed (over the protest of the eastern regions) into a single nation of the Lowlands and the Highlands, binding together factions of the ancient Inca Empire, and their traditional enemies the Guaran into one unstable nation. This nation, Bolivia, was named after the famed South American Liberator, Simon Bolivar, and was guided through its first years by a constitution based on that of France.   

And that is where the real fun began. Other nations around Bolivia saw that it was very weak and unstable because of internal turmoil, and began to take vast tracts of land by force and political conniving. Large sections were won by Paraguay, and Uruguay, in wars; they started and ended when they got what they wanted. Brazil, encroached from the east, and Chili in the west, stole the mineral rich Atacama Desert region as a source for phosphates and other natural fertilizers as well as Bolivias only access to the sea. Bolivia currently holds less then one half of the territory the nation originally claimed, and is completely landlocked, dependant upon its neighbors for all the goods that come from without the continent itself.   

Throughout all the years of turmoil, Bolivia itself was wracked with civil wars, corrupt Presidents, coup detats, riots, famine and general bad luck in wars with other nations, economic conditions, and isolation from the outside world. The Bolivian people expect a major government change every 20 years or so, as that is as long as they have been able to keep the same form of government. In 1986 the Bolivian currency was nearly killed by inflation, and the government changed again. Many attest to being paid in bills of more then a million Bolivian Pesos. Those were the good times. When the wages for a single day began to require a wheelbarrow to carry around, things began to get bad. One elderly woman I spoke to recalled hiring a small boy with a wheelbarrow to help her carry her money to the store to buy bread.   

Since 1986, the country has seen great improvement. Many people were able to get some sort of health care for the first time, and food is much more prevalent then it once was although many people still go hungry. For the first time in Bolivian history, many people could afford to buy automobiles, mostly Japanese imports through Chili. The streets of the major cities are crowded with taxis and small busses ferrying people around to work and school. In Santa Cruz, the countries largest city of more then a million and a half inhabitants, many people own their own businesses.   

Oil and natural gas had been discovered in the Lowlands, moving many people into the regions and out of the Mountains. One crop which grows in the fertile jungle regions of the Amazon Basin, has sprung up as a major cash crop, Coca, the plant from which cocaine is made. Bolivia is the worlds second largest producer of cocaine, coming in behind Columbia, where most of the war on drugs has been focused for the last few decades.

Well here we are again. I think I have reached my limit in the number of words I can cram into one article. The stage is now set. I am ready for my final tale. For next I will tell of what is actually happening in Bolivia, now and how it affects even us in our safe homes in Sault Ste Marie. The affects of all of this history are about to come crashing down on us. There I will leave you for now. 

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