We just returned from a long talk with Nas Palas. It started out as a pleasant birthday dinner for Reyna, but after the festivities died down and we were sitting around enjoying the evening, we got to talking– the kind of important discussion that we don’t get often enough. Perhaps he was prompted by Reyna, who has lately been spending time talking with Emily about our frustrations here.
“The people here,” Nas began, “they are good people. But the leaders, they are bad.” The smoke from the fire drifted across the sooty ceiling as he began to talk about Manuel. We’ve long thought that Manuel qualified as a “bad leader”: he talks a good game, but is lazy and doesn’t do a thing. Since the very beginning, we’ve had all sorts of trouble from him: simple things like “helping” us get firewood while overcharging us, or tricking us into lending him money then not paying it back, as well as more serious stuff, like telling the village that he’s our boss and we aren’t allowed to work without his permission, or trying to steal our chicken while we were away. We mentioned to Nas that for the last few weeks, he’s been telling us that “people just won’t show up” to the meetings for the SPA project.
Nas shook his head slowly. “He doesn’t tell them there are meetings. Haven’t you noticed that in the last few weeks, he hasn’t made any announcements on the loudspeaker? He’s a afraid of the people right now.” Why? Because he’s stealing from them, and they know it. We’ve been hearing reports from reliable people about this for a while… for example, the nurse told us that he collected money from all the ladies to put curtains in the waiting rooms at the health center, but the money disappeared. He also collected donations to build a retaining wall where the earth is collapsing near the health center, and much of that is missing as well. Now Nas tells us that many months back, Manuel and the village leaders collected a bunch of money from the villagers to buy the electrical meter for the computer center, but that cash disappeared as well. Manuel took it out of the treasury, went on a drinking binge in Soloma, and spent the rest on his mistress that lives up the valley a bit.
“But the electrical meter just got put in last week!” I said.
Nas winced. “Yes. Don Ximon and I are embarrassed about how things are going, so I bought the meter.” That means that Nas Palas took 1500Q out of his own savings. To put that in perspective, that’s about 50 days’ wages. From the look on his face, I think he plans on taking it out of Manuel’s hide at some point. “Manuel has been making up stories all along,” he continued. “This paper he’s had us all running around to find, to send to the Ministry of Health? They never asked for it. As it turned out, it only took us a couple of minutes to go to the municipal building and get the exact paper they wanted, but it was never actually a requirement. He said he went to the electric company to ask for the meter; that was a lie too. He made it all up. I talked to Don Ximon, and we were embarrassed that the computers have been sitting there so long, eight months with nothing happening. When the electric company came to bring me the light bills, I asked them to install the meter. They said they’d come back in 8 days, and 8 days later, they were here installing the meter. Manuel had done nothing.” Nothing, that is, except to take credit when the meter finally got installed.
He then went on to explain that Manuel, Elias (the village treasurer), and Daniel (one of the village council members) all embezzle this way.
“How about Don Tomax?” I asked. Nas conceded that Tomax was crooked too, but not as bad as the others. This is a blow; not only did I like that guy, but he is one of our only options for working AROUND Manuel. To do a SPA project here, we need a sponsor in the village that is the head of a legalized group. The only ones I know of right now are Manuel (the Health Committee) and Don Tomax (the Development Board).
About that time, Nas’s wife said something in Q’anjob’al. “Yes, there is that,” Nas replied. He then explained to us that Manuel has been telling people that he lent us 500Q to buy tickets when we returned to the States for Thanksgiving. At first take, this sounds ridiculous: flights to the States cost five times that, EACH. But people here don’t think that way, and will believe most anything that comes out of Manuel’s mouth. Then we realized, this rumor isn’t just malicious, it’s downright dangerous! If people think that Manuel is stealing from the town, then are told that he is lending us money, it’s only a short leap to then think that WE are in cahoots with him and stealing money from the town as well. At best, we’ll ruin the reputation of Peace Corps and any future foreign aid workers. At worst… people in this region have been burned to death for that sort of thing.
We are suddenly thrust into the unfortunate position where we MUST find a way to make the SPA project work. If we don’t, the people will forever think that it’s our fault that the aid Manuel’s been promising them never came. In fact, Manuel has been telling people that things are dragging out because “the gringoes are lazy and don’t want to work.” For my sake, I couldn’t care less… I am going back to the US in half a year, I know the real story, and I don’t have to prove myself to anyone. But it will have a long term bad effect on the confidence the people will have to work with another aid group in the future, and that’s not fair to them. Also, the people aren’t going to want to put out money for a SECOND incomplete project. It’s tempting to think that my computer center project wrecked the SPA project, but that’s not the case. Manuel wrecked them both by stealing from the pot and breaking the villagers’ confidence.
It’s now obvious that we can’t work with Manuel. We’ve given him WAY too many second chances, and he stabs us in the back over and over. Even talking to him, from here on out, is a non-starter: every interaction we have with him hurts our image. So here’s the two-part challenge:
- We need to find a new leader for the people to rally behind. It can’t be Manuel or one of his cronies, and it has to be someone that can talk to the people and have their trust. It must be someone respected, with the bravery to lead and stand in front of the crowd. That last thing is very rare in this culture. It would be ideal if it were a woman. This is extra hard because in this culture, when someone tries to rise up and take initiative, everyone else’s natural reaction is, “Who do you think YOU are?” and browbeats them back into their place.
- We need to find a sponsor that meets the technical requirements of the SPA grant: head of a legalized entity, with access to a community-held bank account. It can be the same person as above, but might be better if it isn’t. Don Tomax is a possible for this; like I said, if Manuel dislikes him, he can’t be all bad. And the SPA project parameters make it very difficult to embezzle money.
And we have to do all this in the next week or two. Time is running out.
I thanked Nas for sharing all this information with us. So much happens here that we don’t know about; not just because of language and cultural barriers, but because of small-town politics and ancient family history. But also, this knowledge is important because in a few months we’re going to have to meet with our boss to make a recommendation as to whether or not the Peace Corps is going to place another volunteer here after we leave. If the people aren’t willing to participate and work with us, it would make sense to abandon this village and search for another. But now we know that the villagers ARE enthusiastic and participatory; they are just hamstringed by the few in power. I shudder to think how many times throughout history good folk have been undone by poor leadership. “The people are good,” Nas Palas reiterated. “Only the leaders are bad.”
Nas ended the discussion by saying that he spoke with Don Ximon a few days ago, and the two of them are going to have a meeting to try to figure out what to do about this. It’s kindof sad, because these two guys are 20 years older than all the other leaders, and were once the village leaders themselves a generation ago. Now they are mostly retired, and I can tell they are sad and disgruntled with the self-serving nature of the current leadership. We’ve promised not to act until we can meet with the two of them to try to formulate a plan. Nas asked us several times to have patience, to not be discouraged. “Este quire mucha paciencia,” this requires a lot of patience. “No desaniman ustedes,” don’t get frustrated. He assured us we’d figure out a solution to this problem.