A Day in the Life of Chaos

Patrick and Ira If ever I have had adventures in my life I must without a doubt include my friend Ira Wald as a partner in crime.  Ira and I spent four years together in Bolivia and during that time we used our investigative creativity to justify some ventures out into the far corners of the country.  There was almost no where Ira and I were not willing to go.  Both of us thirsted for new experiences and a chance to glimpse different parts of a wild land. Ira truly loved his job.  In the agency he is known as a Diversion Investigator.  Domestically this typically means they investigate corrupt doctors and pill mills yet in Bolivia his mission was different.  Ira was tasked at identifying companies that chose to use their manufacturing as a basis to buy chemicals that were later diverted into the production of cocaine.  Bolivia is a source country for cocaine production and thus obtaining needed chemicals for the conversion of coca leaves to the white powder was essential.  The i

Rio Mamore, Bolivia Beni, Bolivia Recently I read a book by Charles C. Mann called 1491.  In it, the author spends a significant amount of time discussing the land that comprises the North Eastern side of Bolivia known as the Beni.  To the naked eye it seems to be an endless grassland punctuated by trees that spends large segments of the year under water.  Rivers wind their way through the land like snakes toward an eventual confluence with the mighty Amazon river itself.  At the time when I was flying over it as a younger man I remember trying to make sense of it all.  From my perch in the machine gunners position on a Vietnam era Huey UH-1 Helicopter I looked out and watched parrots fly in pairs over the trees.  While the noise made it impossible to communicate there was something transfixing about sitting in front of an open door watching the ground pass below me.  I remember seeing patterns in the countryside but I had no idea what they meant.  It is a strangely vacant lan