An Autonomous Beni

Yesterday passed uneventfully with peaceful voting and hardly any conflict. I heard about a minor scuffle in one of the smaller plazas but by and large the voting went forward as expected with no problems. I spent the day hiding out in the house, but heard firecrackers going off all day. The people of the Beni have now approved the autonomy referendum with over 80% of the voters in favor of the measure (talk about overwhelming majority). It now joins Santa Cruz as a declared autonomous department and we wait to see what happens next.

Anyway, just wanted to let you all know that things are fine here and nothing major happened in the way of conflict. This morning life is back to normal . . .