“Little by little” in uncertainty

Someone said that the country is experiencing a “fluctuating” economic crisis, because one day the dollar costs so much and the next day a little less, and, unlike, for example, what happened in the early 1980s, people do not feel the full impact on their pockets.
The prices of some products, especially imported ones, are rising, but not so much as to cause greater social tension. In other words, and although it may sound strange, the government seems to be confident that things will not reach such extremes that they lead to uncontrollable social instability or, worse, to a real electoral catastrophe for the ruling party, regardless of who its candidate is.
But one thing is what we want to believe and another is what is really happening. For several weeks now, the boliviano has been devalued more and more against the dollar. There are few dollars and they are becoming more and more expensive. It is no longer enough to minimize the problem or predict a quick solution. The government’s credibility in this regard is almost zero.
The same thing happens with diesel. One day there is enough fuel, and the next there are long queues of vehicles, mostly heavy transport vehicles, waiting to get some fuel. The problems are serious for transport and even more so for farmers.
Without machines to work the land, production is at risk, losses for the sector increase and food security is compromised. Solutions are always on the verge of arriving, but they turn out to be palliatives, because imports are always insufficient compared to the growing demand and we return to the vicious circle.
Moreover, as debts to hydrocarbon transport companies are ever higher, it is no longer easy to access credit. So, not entirely transparent agreements are made with Russia to import diesel, even at the risk of the country being subject to sanctions in force since Vladimir Putin invaded Ukraine two years ago. Tankers arrive under the flags of countries such as Gabon, a Central African republic about which there are few references, except for those that can be found by a curious Google search.
If one word defines all this, it is “uncertainty.” We may know what will happen today, but we do not know what will happen tomorrow. The dollar will reach Bs. 10 on Thursday, but on Friday it may rise a little more and on Saturday it may fall half a point. Nobody knows. And diesel? Well, now that the large tankers full of Russian diesel have docked in the Port of Arica, it is to be hoped that the tankers will arrive in Bolivia as soon as possible and supply all types of consumers at once.
But will this solution be sustainable? Will Bolivia not be penalized for importing fuel from a country sanctioned by Europe and the United States? In these times, doubts are stronger than anything else.
President Luis Arce says, for example, that we are getting out of the crisis “little by little”. What does “little by little” mean? Is “little by little” a year, or two or more? What prevents us from moving forward “little by little” instead of “little by little”? What is the difference between the measures adopted to do things “little by little” or “little by little”? That is the question.
But the thing is that there are no answers, or if there are, their credibility lasts until reality denies them. And people seem to be getting used to this story, to waking up every morning in a different scenario than the day before, to experiencing a kind of managed anxiety, to concluding that for now everything is like this, so difficult to predict, so elusive, to resigning themselves to living, “little by little,” in uncertainty.