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.

Sand Problems

Of course this drama will never end until our house is finished, and at the rate we are going, it will probably be another 10-20 years...So get ready for a lot of blog posts. Maybe I should just start another blog called "Don't build a house in Guatemala" but I'm still sweaty and in Petén, so I'll stick around here for now.

When I ordered my trailer full of sand, I was given the options of 32 meters, 35 meters or 38 meters. I of course chose 32 meters knowing that the amount of sand would be the same either way and hoping that with my low order I would have a better chance of it all fitting on the truck.

I told them that I would pay for what was delivered and was assured that I would receive that correct amount because Manuel would never cheat me. I told him that while I appreciated him saying that, my albañil would be measuring everything anyway.

So when the sand arrived Lico measured everything out. The driver told me that they had brought me 35 meters of sand, but would only charge me for the 32. Red Flag number one. Nobody gives anything for free.

It came out that the length of the trailer is 12 meters. The interior width is 2.28 meters and the height in the center of the trailer was .85. That comes out to 23.256 cubic meters. That's almost Q1000 worth of sand that did not arrive. I told the driver no problem, that I'd just pay for the sand he brought and that he didn't have to make another trip. I was then told that he had loaded up 32 meters (wait, I thought it was 35...) but that some blows off the top during the trip. I told him that he should buy a tarp because it is not acceptable for a third of my sand to blow off the truck. "No, you don't understand, it doesn't blow off the top, it compresses with the vibrations of the road." He then explained that you have to add 10 cm to the top for compression because that's what everybody does.

It doesn't matter that adding that 10 cm only increases my total cubic meters to 24.276, I told him that I don't pay for air. I had never encountered this before and it didn't matter to me if he steals from everybody else, I only pay for what I get. Then he said that my albañil doesn't know how to measure and that the truck is actually 12.6 meters long and that gives me my 32 meters when I add the 10 cm. Well, that's still only 27.29 cubic meters, but I acted very chapin and took great offense that he would dare criticize my worker's measuring skills, plus I had just bought him a new tape measure.

After a little more talking I told him to unload all of the sand and that Lico would remeasure once on the ground because unloading the sand by shovel would take care of the compression problem. After all that we came up with the same amount of sand-23.25 cubic meters.

This had still not been resolved when the owner finally arrived. He wanted the rest of his money, even though he still hasn't delivered my block. I prepaid Q9,000 out of Q15,000 and the block is worth Q8,500 of that. I told him that I would pay him on Monday if he really did deliver the block, after I had counted all the block, and discounted the sand he didn't bring. There were lots of "Fijese" thrown about and more explanation about how my worker couldn't measure, the truck is actually longer than it really is and sand settles 10 cm, no matter how high it is stacked.

Of course, I didn't pay any more money, because I knew ahead of time that he would be asking me for it and I left my money at home. That way I could truthfully say that I didn't have any money with me...fijese.

Now I have to decide whether I stop buying from him altogether (the logical Gringo's first choice) or whether he has learned that the Gringo in San Pancho is tacaño (cheap) and not tonto (dumb), therefore bringing me the correct amount of materials from here on out.

It Doesn't Just Happen To Gringos

So out of my 4 new workers, only one is worth asking back for next week. I really need two assistants though for my albañil (mason). The guys were complaining about the heat and how they wanted to start arriving at 4am so they could leave at noon before it got hot, but after a long explanation that they didn't understand about how I knew they would take the same amount of breaks, therefore not working a full 8 hours, and that it is impossible to work well while still dark outside. After explaining these points several times, I finally just told them that if they don't like working when it's hot, they shouldn't have moved to Petén and that I could find workers who didn't complain about the heat.

So I did. I called Quincho in Guate and paid his bus ticket (which he'll pay me back next week by working) to come and start. He is stronger than most people here, works hard all day, and I have a rapport with him to be able to explain how to do things right without him getting all mopey and offended.

So I went to the bus office here in El Chal to find out how to pay for his ticket. I was told to come back at 6pm and to tell Quincho to be at the station in Guate at the same time to catch the 7pm bus. I would pay for the ticket, be given the actual ticket, but Quincho would be put on the bus manifest and all would work out. To my surprise, that's how it worked out. I paid the Q110 and he got a seat on the bus.

That night, about halfway to Petén, the bus driver told Quincho to get off the bus. The driver claimed that Quincho's ticket was for only Q60 and since Quincho didn't have the ticket in hand, he had no proof. Quickly the driver came up with the solution that Quincho could get a ride all the way, but he had to leave his bag with the bus driver. "Don't go to the office, come and pay me directly tomorrow," the driver told him.

So at 6 am Quincho was at my door. I gave him a ride to the city (Santa Elena) and I went directly to the office to complain. The man behind the counter was shocked, but went in search of the bag. Of course, the bag was not in the normal holding area. After a phone call to the driver, we were directed to a place in the market where the driver was waiting to watch the game on tv, and had the bag with him. Upon arriving, there was another argument about the Q50, but we finally got the bag without having to pay. BTW, World Cup means bus drivers sit around the market and get hammered. There were several empty cases of beer next to several more unopened ones and these drivers were on 12 hour break before driving back to Guatemala City that night.