Friday, July 8, 2011
Since I wrote the last post...
The bus companies have paid the appropriate parties and begun to run again, two courts have rejected the president's ex-wife's candidacy for president, and i have realized that I can hear everything going on in the apartment next to mine, which at the moment is a lot of baby talk and the occasional baby crying. All this to say that everything is normal. The woman who I buy bananas from in Kachiquel still insists on trying to have full conversations with me when its obvious that in the year she has been speaking to me in Kachiquel I have not gained any new vocabulary beyond "how much are the bananas," and either - "I am going to the market" or "I am going home," depending on the direction of my trajectory. Today she tried to add a new word to my repertoire by asking me if I was going far. Judging by how quickly I forgot the word for far, I am not a very receptive student. Never-the-less, her patience and persistence remind me that maybe I should have the same patience with schools that just don't seem to learn to wash their hands. Or maybe she just gets a kick out of the gringa trying to speak Kaqchikel. I have a feeling that that will never change. On the other hand, maybe I am finally starting to blend in. I gave a 4th grader quite a start the other day when he found out that I was from the US and not in fact, from Patzún. The idea blew his mind, and when I asked him if he had ever seen a Patzunera as tall and white as me he said yes, there is one other. It was probably Maggie.
Maybe skip this one mom...
Today there are no buses leaving or coming into my town. Yesterday a driver of a Patzún bus was shot and killed on his route- the work of unpaid extortionists. So today is either a day of mourning or a day of fear. On the way to school I heard a teacher comment:
”It was better during the military rule. We all kept our heads down and if you weren’t involved, nothing happened to you. Now something bad could happen to anybody.”
As misguided as this concept may be, it is one that is becoming more and more reasonable to more and more people as violence seems to increase across the country. This may not be the news my mom wants to hear, but leading up to the elections, it is the news that we are all hearing here.
For a while now I have wanted to write a blog about the up-coming elections here in Guatemala, but I have been unsure how to present the information without my personal political bias (which is something that us PCVs are not allowed to have). But as the election draws nearer things keep happening that I consider blog worthy, so I thought I’d give it a shot. Just a disclaimer- my views are not the views of the Peace Corps or the US Government… or whatever it says at the top of my blog.
With elections on the horizon and the perception of rising violence, security is a popular theme- hence the over-heard comment quoted above. This idea that the country was safer with military rule is something I heard often in Argentina, another Latin American country that recently experienced a period of state violence, and that I’ve now heard various times here in Guatemala. I imagine it would be easier for one to think that only the guilty were affected by the violence of the war, but to me this pervasive idea displays a lack of social and cultural memory of what actually occurred and a conviction that one’s personal experience was shared by all. This way of thinking can help explain the popularity of a party with the slogan “A hard hand” which is running a campaign based on security and a candidate who is ex-military special forces. The same special forces group, mind you, that was infamous during “la violencia,” or the civil war for their brutality and inhumane practices.
Another hot button issue in Guatemala is, of course, poverty, and another popular party has made it’s platform the continuation of social programs that give away money, food, cows, etc. Although these programs are popular in many areas, some Guatemalans make fun of them as ineffective by changing the name from “my family progresses” to “my cantina progresses.” This party’s candidate happens to be the current president’s ex-wife who conveniently divorced her spouse to be legally able to mount her campaign. The courts are still out on whether or not this move was constitutionally viable, but she pushes ahead with her propaganda and programs that some say are still funded with government money- an advantage to being the party in power.
Among other candidates are Indigenous rights activist Rigoberta Menchu, an ex- mega-church pastor, the wife of another ex-president, a member of the family that owns Pollo Campero (Guatemala’s McDondalds)- the list goes on. It has been interesting to watch the debates and the appearances of the various candidates on TV. Guatemala is facing many difficulties and it is interesting, although occasionally frustrating, to hear the candidates’ ideas for solutions. Coming from a system that is functionally two-party, it can be overwhelming, but it is also exiting to have so many candidates participating. After living here for only a year and a half I have begun to feel invested in the country, and I, like most Guatemalans, wish for the country a future government that is able to find solutions to problems of corruption, violence, underdevelopment and poverty.
”It was better during the military rule. We all kept our heads down and if you weren’t involved, nothing happened to you. Now something bad could happen to anybody.”
As misguided as this concept may be, it is one that is becoming more and more reasonable to more and more people as violence seems to increase across the country. This may not be the news my mom wants to hear, but leading up to the elections, it is the news that we are all hearing here.
For a while now I have wanted to write a blog about the up-coming elections here in Guatemala, but I have been unsure how to present the information without my personal political bias (which is something that us PCVs are not allowed to have). But as the election draws nearer things keep happening that I consider blog worthy, so I thought I’d give it a shot. Just a disclaimer- my views are not the views of the Peace Corps or the US Government… or whatever it says at the top of my blog.
With elections on the horizon and the perception of rising violence, security is a popular theme- hence the over-heard comment quoted above. This idea that the country was safer with military rule is something I heard often in Argentina, another Latin American country that recently experienced a period of state violence, and that I’ve now heard various times here in Guatemala. I imagine it would be easier for one to think that only the guilty were affected by the violence of the war, but to me this pervasive idea displays a lack of social and cultural memory of what actually occurred and a conviction that one’s personal experience was shared by all. This way of thinking can help explain the popularity of a party with the slogan “A hard hand” which is running a campaign based on security and a candidate who is ex-military special forces. The same special forces group, mind you, that was infamous during “la violencia,” or the civil war for their brutality and inhumane practices.
Another hot button issue in Guatemala is, of course, poverty, and another popular party has made it’s platform the continuation of social programs that give away money, food, cows, etc. Although these programs are popular in many areas, some Guatemalans make fun of them as ineffective by changing the name from “my family progresses” to “my cantina progresses.” This party’s candidate happens to be the current president’s ex-wife who conveniently divorced her spouse to be legally able to mount her campaign. The courts are still out on whether or not this move was constitutionally viable, but she pushes ahead with her propaganda and programs that some say are still funded with government money- an advantage to being the party in power.
Among other candidates are Indigenous rights activist Rigoberta Menchu, an ex- mega-church pastor, the wife of another ex-president, a member of the family that owns Pollo Campero (Guatemala’s McDondalds)- the list goes on. It has been interesting to watch the debates and the appearances of the various candidates on TV. Guatemala is facing many difficulties and it is interesting, although occasionally frustrating, to hear the candidates’ ideas for solutions. Coming from a system that is functionally two-party, it can be overwhelming, but it is also exiting to have so many candidates participating. After living here for only a year and a half I have begun to feel invested in the country, and I, like most Guatemalans, wish for the country a future government that is able to find solutions to problems of corruption, violence, underdevelopment and poverty.
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