ELECTIONS!

On Saturday, September 5^th the Guatemala celebrated Election Day with a massive, controversial, and very passionate turn out. Up until this point Guatemalan politics have been obscenely corrupt with past and at the time serving politicians (VP and now two presidents) being recently indicted and on their way to conviction (maybe). Technically Guatemala is a democracy...much in the way that Panem was a democracy.

 A few references for history's sake:

 Where the latest President is now
Former VP scandal
Yet another former president

Being here during this incredible time of change has been incredible. Just in the past few months we have seen Guatemalans stand up and say "basta, no more!". Arguably the most surprising/fascinating part of this change is that it has been brought about through a series of peaceful protests.
Protest info 

The Guatemalans present in the protests definitely proved that peaceful can be remarkably powerful and extremely passionate. Here are some of my favorite pictures from the protests:

Guatemala City

I will not vote

Otto (former president) and Baldizon (candidate)...the same shit

I really just love the woman in traje and a Guy Fawkes mask

Our town is currently covered in these advertisements for the Patriota party

Here are this year's candidates for president

Here is a breakdown of the events of election night and siguente days in my site:

The two main parties here will be represented as L and P.

Sunday morning at around 3 AM people start to form the line to vote, although the doors don’t open until 7 (hora chapina need not apply). People stood in line for hours waiting at one of the two polling locations in tows (keep in mind there are about 4,000 people who need to vote at one of these spaces, and also that the word “eficiencia” is a false cognate for efficiency, as I have learned the word efficient isn’t applicable in campo vocabulary.

People continue to wait for eternity to vote, polls close at 5.

 Around 6pm things start getting rowdy, sitemate stays with me because shit’s beginning to get really intense. My host family and I have to go get her together as it is no longer deemed safe for me to go get her alone (this should have been a sign).

Everything is fairly tranquila, the parties are waiting with their groups waiting for the results which generally 

come out at around 1:30 A.M. here.

All PCVs from site are checking the polls as they come in, most communities have posted results by 10/11P.

1:30 A BOMBAS (fire crackers, but the really big ones someone lights then drops down a long pipe and gives the general effect and noise of a small bomb exploding near..hence the name bomba).

Things happen, we are safely tucked away with the childrens while the host parents are out doing whatever people do to celebrate/drowned sorrows.

6A site mate informs me my host family’s party won, solid. This is good as the current mayor has been a dictator for 16 years, has hella money, multiple houses, cars, etc. He is the very typical sleazeball politician down to the overly greased, slicked back hair. We now call him Felicia Par Par (Using his actual last name and the other referring to “bye Felicia” because it’s the little things that keep us sane-ish).

Anyway, results are in according to the paper, awesome! There is only a .02% difference between the major parties. Nifty.

 

Later Sunday morning sitemate and I meet for breakfast and notice that the school and other building used for the polling sites have been ***demolished**(mostly internally)
. Literally, brand new school, the inauguration happened in July, and one party tried to burn it down.

school windows

The local bank

Steel school doors partially ripped off to access the votes and burn down the school

Bewilderment

We later learn that the bombas we heard at 1:30 were fake, early celebration bombas to throw off the L party (I thought this seemed really overly simplified and laughable) but it WORKED. The P party enraged in their false celebration (because somehow only they knew the real results?) go fucking nuts. Like for real. Riot style. Fist fights break out, they break down the steel door that has been used to barricade the door of the school, the pull stones out of the street to break the school’s windows, try to attack it from the back, completely trampling a business. Finally break down the door, then TRY TO SET THE SCHOOL ON FIRE in hopes of destroying the votes, because…evidence? 

Sunday is tense. The town is quite literally divided; L party on the East side, P party on the West. Complete stalemate, just waiting for the results to come in. Jokes on them. The results actually still aren’t in. A week later and my town still is fighting over who won, and things are, understandably, still very tense.

A few days ago a smaller  part of the community on the outskirts of our town had the L party call a meeting where the topic was some water meeting, except BAMBOOZLED. Once the doors were shut they started to talk about water then the party who coordinated the meeting ambushed and started beating the shit out of the Party people. The injuries weren’t too terrible from this Trojan Horse attack, but that’s pretty freaking scary. If a town meeting based off a fictitious water project are sacred anymore what is?

I personally believe that when the people received an invitation to a town meeting about actually accomplishing a task people should’ve been suspicious.

To be continued it seems.

 

So that’s what’s going on here…What’s going on with y’all?