They had told me that at Calacoto we would get off the bus and join the line behind the purple banner, and that we had to stay two steps behind the delegates with the megaphone, and that we mustn't take anything to drink from anyone who didn't have the badge over their shirt, because at these marches there are provocateurs who make you faint and you end up in the paper, and President Paz's papers are hungry.

My brother had told me not to come. My sister-in-law too. My mother no. My mother said to me: take your card, and keep it in your pocket, and don't pull it out except when it's needed.

At Calacoto we got off. We were seventy, maybe eighty. The purple banner was carried by two delegates from El Alto, one with her child on her back, one without. The march set off at half past seven from the Avenida and we had to reach the Plaza Murillo by eleven, and from there on to the committee meeting. Three hours on foot, with the sun already strong over the Khantapata, and the air that cuts your lips.

We walked in line. When you're in line you don't feel the cold. You feel your feet, you feel the strap of the backpack, you feel the one ahead of you breathing a little too fast, and you slow down to match their pace. The march has one pace only, the delegate from Achacachi had told us, and the pace is that of the slowest.

At Sopocachi, down at the end, the roadblock. Three trucks, six soldiers in pale camouflage, and in front of the checkpoint a line of men standing still, each one with his document in hand. The delegate with the megaphone told us to show our identity document without saying anything, not to open the card, to let them do the talking.

I slipped my hand into my pocket. The card was there. The identity document was in the other one. The card has a crease down the middle, where I had folded it to make it fit in the leather wallet my father gave me for my fifteenth birthday. You can feel the crease with your thumb. The fingertip lands on it as into a groove.

I recognized Pedro. He was in the pale camouflage, to the right of the block, and he looked at me without looking at me. Pedro is from Patacamaya. He's the son of a woman from my mother's village. His mother used to come to the house to fetch the raw wool to spin. I watched Pedro grow up. Pedro is twenty now and he holds the rifle low and his right hand on his hip.

Pedro saw me. Pedro lowered his eyes and raised them again.

I had sixty seconds. The delegates ahead were already passing, one at a time, each showed her document and said the name of the village and the pale camouflage marked it on a sheet. The line moved forward. Sixty seconds.

I said to myself: if I show the document and nothing else, I'm any woman, one from Achacachi, and I pass, and I reach the Plaza Murillo, and I speak for the village. I said to myself: if I show the card, they know who I am, they know who I speak for, and they keep me here half a day and I miss the meeting and Pedro has to pretend not to know me.

My mother had told me: keep it in your pocket, and don't pull it out except when it's needed.

Now it was needed. I pulled out the card. I opened it along the crease, I held it over the identity document, I handed it to the pale camouflage with the sheet. Pedro did not move his hand from his hip. The pale camouflage read, raised his eyes, read again, said: federation of Achacachi. He said: stand on the right.

I stood on the right.

Behind me Petrona of Pucarani pulled out her card. Behind her Cipriana of Sapahaqui. Behind her Felicia of Caquiaviri. Behind her another, and another still. The line on the right grew behind me without anyone having told them to. The pale camouflage began to sweat. Pedro took his hand off his hip and put it over the rifle and then put it down again.

We stayed there. The delegate with the megaphone stopped speaking. The march halted. The sun was high.

The pale camouflage called inside the truck. Another one came out. They began to talk quietly. Pedro looked at me. I looked at the card in his hand. The crease was still the crease. My father, when he had given it to me, had told me: this leather is from a cow of my father's. The crease was in the leather. The crease is still in the leather. I thought that my mother had known.

The other pale camouflage came to speak to me. He asked me what I wanted to say at the Plaza Murillo. I answered him: that we are people, not categories. He looked at me. He said: pass. He gave back the card. He shouted to the first one: let them through.

I passed. Petrona behind. Cipriana, Felicia, the others. The purple banner started moving again. Pedro did not look at me anymore. It was right that way.

At the Plaza Murillo we arrived at twenty past eleven. The meeting had begun twenty minutes earlier. I spoke for the village. Three minutes. I said two things. I said: we are people. I said: the card is our written word. I said, at the end, that at Sopocachi a soldier from Patacamaya had lowered his eyes and raised them again, and that from that small gesture I had understood that the march had already arrived.

I left the Plaza at noon. I caught the two o'clock bus for Achacachi. I got home when it was dark. My mother was waiting for me on the threshold. She said to me: did you have the card in your pocket? I told her: yes. She said to me: did you pull it out? I told her: yes. She said to me: did they let you through? I told her: yes.

She looked at me. She said: I knew it.