I Need Money For My Sick Kid

This statement is made to us on a regular basis. Always by women. When men lie about needing money, they ask for their sick wife. When women lie about needing money, it is for their sick child. Not that needing the money is the lie, but the story they tell that they think will convince you, the merciful yet stupid gringo, to give them the money.

A lady whose never talked to us before nor come to any of our activities recently approached us in Santa Rita. She told me she needed Q200 because her 4 yr old daughter is sick. Here's our conversation

Jimmy: Wow, Q200. Don't you know that the big hospital in San Benito is free?

Lady: Well yes, but you have to pay transportation.

J: Yeah that's right...do you know that it only costs Q5 to get there. So round trip for you and your daughter is Q20 if they charge you for the little girl too.

L: Well yeah, but she has amoebas and the medicine costs Q70.

J: Really? I just had that and the medicine cost me Q25. Why don't you give me the name of the medicine or the prescription from the doctor and I'll pick up the medicine from my guy since it is so much cheaper. I'll bring it to you tomorrow.

L: Ok, I'll go home and get it.

So of course she didn't come back and that confirmed that she didn't really need money for her sick kid, but was using that as an excuse. However the next day her mom flagged me down. She apparently owed somebody Q200 and they couldn't pay it back and yes the little girl was sick but now she's better but it would really be great if I could go ahead and loan them the money so they could pay back the loan.

Why would somebody think that I would loan them money when they just told me that they owe somebody and can't pay it back. Will I have to wait for the next Gringo to arrive so they can pay me back for this lady? To top it off, this person doesn't know me and has never talked to me before.

This is a pretty typical scenario. On the rare occasion you will have somebody who really does need help, and we have helped before by buying medicine or taking people to our private doctor and covering the costs, but you have to be careful to not be tricked. It would be easy in the short-term to just hand everybody a little bit of money, but in the long-term we would lose respect and have a group of people paying lip service to what we teach with the hope of getting another hand-out.

Update on José Xol

I typed up a summary of what happened on our ministry blog for those of you who are interested. Check it out HERE.

Anybody for an Exotic Pet?

While checking wall construction recently a lady came up to me and asked for Q75. When I didn't just hand it over, she offered me a pet she had in her bag. Apparently her husband had got a whole litter of baby armadillos the day before. The workers were laughing and said they could get a whole one cooked for that amount of money, and that's something you could put on a tortilla...

Wall Progress

So here's a couple pictures of our wall as it is progressing. I only have two workers on it now, have gone through 70 bags of cement, and since my original bulk order of materials have had to order 500 more large rocks, 100 lbs of steel, and 400 U blocks. I went ahead and ordered another 2,000 block as well because the truck was coming anyways and it's not like I won't use it. I could use more workers to get more accomplished, but salaries would run me out of money too quickly and if I have to lay off my workers because I run out of material, I might not get them back. So it's slow going for now but at least both guys show up for work every day.

I Cannot Imagine

It is one of our biggest fears while driving. José was driving yesterday on a dirt road and as he passed a stopped Microbus, a 9 yr. old boy ran out in front without looking. He tried to brake but couldn't stop in time. They rushed him to the nearest hospital (1.5 hrs away) but the boy died within 30 minutes so they turned around and took him back.

It took only minutes for a crowd of thousands to gather. He called me after they got back, weeping and asking me to pray. I asked if he was ok and through the tears he said, "Only God knows." They were ready to burn him alive in typical indigenous fashion, but thankfully the head of the Baptist association arrived and calmed them down with the words, "but if you kill him, you won't get any money." The father of the child immediately demanded Q90,000. After negotiation, José agreed to pay Q50,000 within 15 days. Mateo, the Kekchi pastor overseeing the association had brought along Q7,000 to appease the people for now.

His missionary partner Domingo called me after it was over. He was driving José home, upset that his friend had agreed to so much when he has so little. He said that maybe José would be able to sell his land or something. I was shocked that the price was so high, when funeral arrangements including tomb and casket would maybe reach the price of Q10,000.

I called a friend of mine who has a lot of connections and is the owner of a bus company to get a grasp of the cultural side of this. When I told him the amount, he seemed relieved and described it as low. He said to his buddy with him, "50,000 for a kid? Yeah Jimmy, that's a good price. Maybe he got off easy since he's poor." Apparently he knows somebody who just had to pay Q120,000 for killing a friend's kid.

It was explained to me that it doesn't matter if it was unintentional, or if it was the kid's fault, or even if it was the mom's fault who wasn't watching her kid, the crime is killing a kid while driving. That apparently means prison time, unless you can convince the family to drop the charges. The "offering" is meant to be a help to get them to that conclusion. The lawyers around here have a form all ready to go.

So we're going to try and help our friend. We have several friends in the States who know José already looking to see how they can help. José is the national with whom we work the most. He is the kindest, most trustworthy person we have met here and his heart for his own people is evident. A show of his reputation is that the association already paid Q7,000 and is looking to do more. The churches here will be taking of love offerings as well, but it takes a lot of Q5 and Q10 bills to get to Q43,000.