A continuar...

This doesn´t have anything to do with the project, but I just had to mention it. Andrea and I got to go see a speech last night by ¨el presidente legitimo de México¨, Andrés Manuel López Obrador! For people that didn´t follow the election last year, Obrador was the leftist candidate in the election against the conservative PAN party Calderón, and he lost by a very small margin and has claimed that their was voting fraud in the election (I could have told you that there was voting fraud even before the election took place!). The speech was a very interesting experience, although I would have to say a little depressing...sortof like going to a Kerry rally in 2005.

Anyways, back to the project. Andrea and I are beginning to wonder how many people in the community are actually protestant expulsados and how many just moved to Damasco for cheaper land than in Chamula. We were talking with Domingo a few weeks ago, and he sortof mentioned that he was Catholic, but didn´t really care what church he went to, they were all the same to him. That sortof stunned us...thinking that this whole community was Protestant expulsados. And then, we were talking with Salvador, the agente municipal, who said that he just moved out here because it had cheaper land than in Chamula. We´re sortof curious how many moved here on account of religous intolerance. Salvador was also mentioning how if he was able to, he would like to go the United States for work. Its so weird coming from a place where that dishwashing job for minimum wage is a last resort to a place where people put their dreams on obtaining that $5 an hour job ( minimum wage in Mexico is somewhere around $4 a day I believe, and many campesinos basically just live off the maíz, frijol, and vegetables they grow in their terreno).

I think Andrea and I have pretty much come to the conclusion that we aren´t going to have a say in how the people to receive toilets are chosen. I think COPÍN is planning on having another sorteo (lottery) and put people in groups of 3 that live close to each other and draw these groups. This will take care of the problem of constructing toilets that are far apart from each other as well as find which houses don´t have people living in them. They are also going to build toilets for people that are willing to contribute some of the materials (such as wood and block). With this seperate clause, it just sortof feels like we are backing the strong horse in order to make the project more successful...especially given that we just denied someone a toilet today because he couldn´t afford the $10 for sand and gravel. Maybe it would be better to have the project where people contribute more than just sand and gravel...based on their income level. The whole thing just feels so inconsistent at this point though.

On the plus side, the first person we are going to be working with seems like he is really nice and fully committed to participating! He has a wife, 4 kids, and his I think his dad lives with him as well. He has been punctual and helped with everything we asked...including storing all the materials in the shell of a new house he was building (he never finished the house because he couldn´t afford to pay the albañil any more money). His family even invited me and Andrea to eat lunch with them the other day! I feel so bad when people invite us to eat their food, because they spend the whole day working in the field just to get their meager amount of food. Its so welcoming and generous that his family would be willing to share with us. He is even willing to put in the extra labor to build the toilet for his neighbor, who is a single mother after her husband ran out on her for somebody down the hill. He seemed a little perplexed when we decided not to build a toilet for his other neighbor, since the neighbor couldn´t afford the sand and gravel (I have to admit I was too). I am definitely glad that we are going to be providing a toilet for him and his family...they seem like great people!