FIELD NOTE 06 · Santa Cruz region, Bolivia
Who can leave?
The gate was open when we arrived. Beyond it, a dirt road divided fields from a line of houses. A woman carrying bread waved us towards the shade.
In this imagined settlement, families shared tools, harvests and the work of looking after one another. Their host, Elena, spoke warmly about knowing she would never be left alone in a crisis.
Her nephew wanted to leave for the city. Around the lunch table, that simple wish acquired weight. Who would do his work? Who would care for his mother? Had the community’s generosity become a debt?
Nobody locked the gate. Yet leaving was plainly more complicated than walking through it. I thought about our own departures: the people whose work had made our adventure possible, and the responsibilities that travel could make conveniently distant.
Elena recognised the notebook’s circle. The earlier traveller had spent a month here and left without writing down a solution. ‘He kept asking about the rules,’ she said. ‘Eventually we asked him who he was responsible for.’
She gave us an envelope addressed only to Lisbon. Inside was a photograph of the yellow-coated man from Dover, sitting at a table with one chair empty.