This past Sunday, on September 11th, Guatemala had its first round of elections. I say first round, because if a presidential party doesn’t reach over 50% of the popular vote, there is a second round of voting in November between the top two candidates. This is the first election of my life, where I was more concerned about the outcome of the local election than of the national election. (Just an aside, this whole experience is teaching me the importance of local politics and it will be a personal goal of mine to become more involved in and informed about local government when I return to the US). Because I work in the municipality, my second year of service is dramatically contingent upon the results of the local election.
The morning of the election I received word that a car carrying 16 people crashed coming down from a community in order to transport people to the urban center to vote. One woman died and fifteen were injured. A woman died because she wanted to exercise her right to vote. Apparently the breaks went out, but there are tons of rumors as to the “truth”. An opposing political party immediately took advantage of the situation and started telling people that the event was the perfect illustration of how the current mayor doesn’t take care of his people. I was immediately revolted by the ability people have to take something as serious as death and manipulate the situation into a political attack. I decided to spend the day in my room catching up on reading, tv shows and laundry. What I thought could have been a potentially dangerous day turned out to be fairly monotonous. Around eight at night, I decided to join my host family and watch the news as well as catch up on the gossip concerning the local election. According to my host mom, we would know the results by eight thirty. We watched as people went from one political party center to the next in order to enjoy free food. At around ten thirty, one political party center immediately began throwing fire crackers and yelling (that’s the way people typically figure out who wins – the winner throws a big party). It turned out to be a false alarm. What was strange about this election night was that it took incredibly longer than usual to know the results of the election. After some midnight munchies and chit chat, I finally decided to go to bed a little past one am. At around two am I received a phone call from one of my co-workers. The current mayor lost. Her tone of voice was a mixture of shock, sadness and fear. Not only did my co-workers candidate lose, she also essentially lost her job that night. When a new mayor is elected, the entire municipal staff is wiped out. During campaign season, candidates promise all sorts of jobs to family members and supporters. Therefore, my hardworking co-workers could easily be swopped out for a candidate’s sister’s friend who has no particular interest in women’s rights.
The next morning I awoke and my host family was ecstatic. Apparently, they were huge supporters of the new guy. “I’m going to have a job!” my host mom exclaimed. Since moving in, my host mom has expressed an interest in returning to work with women’s health. The fact that my host family was so happy made me think that perhaps things would turn out for the best with this new guy around. I expressed my concern for my project. Rumors and gossip are huge here, so I was particularly concerned of a rumor that people were trying to convince the new mayor to get rid of the Mayan Council (the community group I’ve worked closely with over the past months). My host family assured me that there was no need to worry and that anything I needed they would be sure to let this new guy know to give his support. In a land of false promises, I took their optimism with a grain of salt. Either way, my host mom has been suffering through a lot lately and it made me happy to see them full of hope and promise. Later in the evening, I had a two hour conversation with one of my co-workers to try and figure out a way she can continue her job at the municipality. I’ll keep you posted on how that goes but essentially she’s setting up a meeting with the new mayor and the Mayan Council in order to discuss the work that they’ve done for the community and how they’d like to continue to receive municipal support. That meeting is tomorrow, so I’ll keep you all posted. As for the construction of the Mayan Center, the current mayor informed us that he will continue to support us with the labor cost. Unfortunately, there are some loose ends with funding that I was hoping he’d pay for if he won but obviously I’ll have to go through with the SPA funding process in order to make sure we have enough funding to finish the construction.
I’m extremely curious about what my job will be like after January 14th when everything gets formally passed over to the new mayor. I continue to repeat the same mantra I’ve inculcated into my brain over this past year “everything happens for a reason”.
But once again, after having that conversation about how the people truly make a service, I’m beginning to wonder if I went about all of this incorrectly. Have I sacrificed relationship-building opportunities for a tangible project? Perhaps I’m being too critical, but I think it’s important to analyze the past year in order to make a stronger effort to explore new realms in the next coming year. When I think of new projects, I tell myself, once the Center is done, I’m too busy now. I don’t want to go home thinking that I didn’t take full advantage of this opportunity. I guess sometimes it just gets so exhausting to be an outsider; I’d prefer to spend my free time holed up in my room working on “personal growth” or, let’s be honest, crossing off must-see tv episodes. As with everything in life, it’s about balance. (On that note, here’s a funny video clip about PC that I got from a fellow PCV’s facebook )
