Why Do I Bang My Head Into The Wall? Because It Feels So Good When I Stop.

I can’t remember where I first heard that quote. I’m pretty sure it was Grey’s Anatomy episode…some of the best lines I know come from that show. Don’t hate.

Why do I bang my head in the wall? Because it feels so good when I stop. Believe it or not, that actually translates into Spanish quite well. “? Porque estoy golpeando mi cabeza con la pared? Pues, porque siento riquísimo cuando me pare.”

Why might one need to use such a phrase in Peru you might ask? Simple. I assisted my first, and probably last, active budget proposal. What might that be you ask…well it’s a time where the representatives of the organizations and communities come together in the mayor’s office to talk about dividing up the community project budget.

Wait, I just described that way too orderly. It’s really a time where 30 people who are semi-organized come together to yell and scream and literally take their shoe off and slam it into the floor demanding that the government hear why they need a project done in their caserio more than that dude’s over there.

Yeah, sounds like fun doesn’t it? Well see I didn’t know what exactly I was in for when I arrived in the Health Post this morning. I came with one goal: To talk to Carlos, the guy in charge of the environmental concerns of Nanchoc, about the disgrace of a landfill the Mayor has built along the road. It’s horrible! I’m not even sure he dug a hole for the landfill. It looks to me more like he found a spot where with the way the wind blows the sand it created a shallow pit, maybe 4 feet deep, and started dumping tractor loads of trash in the whole. Now as common sense would tell you, if the wind created that hole, then the wind is damn well certain to lift all of the trash out of said hole. Needless to say we’re blowing trash all over the town and into the river. Then to rub a little salt in the wound that is the trash dump, it’s also laying in the middle of a flood plane...oh yes, when December comes around what trash that is left in the hole, that didn’t blow out that is, will be washed straight into the river.

Oh the joy I find when going for an early morning run in my site. Badly made dumps. At least I now know why the Mayor was avoiding showing me said dump for the past 2 months. Even he must have known that it was a mess.

Ok so I’ve gotten sidetracked. Yes that is why I originally showed up the Health Post. To talk. Then Carlos mentioned that there was this active budget proposal meeting and that I should go with the Doctor to mention the horrors that are the dump. GREAT IDEA I thought…

Ok so it all started out great, we talked about the vision of Nanchoc, what we all want to see by 2014, what big projects need to be done to reach those goals. It was all quite orderly and calm. Well that was the first 2 hours. By noon I guess everyone’s stomach’s began to turn on them. The mean came out. People started fighting over why their caserio deserved the money more than another…that is when I knew it would be a fun day. By 1 the representatives of the government decided it was time for a break and lunch. A little cooling off period if you will.

After lunch, things just got worse. Not because of the participants, the lunch had done them all good. They were calm and organized even cooperating and suggesting joint projects to benefit multiple caserios. Oh no, this time the problem was the government. Now it could be that I’m a math major, or that I’m a gringa who occasionally points out flaws in plans when it comes to number crunching…but I became the least favorite member of the community by one of the council members…

So the mayor had told us that we had S./134,400 this upcoming year (2010) for projects. Between 6 caserios that’s S./22,400 per caserio. Roughly $7,466. You can do a fair amount of work in Peru for that amount of money. Palto wanted a new bridge to be built, or maybe a community center, Adventuranza won my heart by saying they wanted a latrine project (in coordination with the Peace Corps volunteer!), Tingues wanted to fix an irrigation canal, Hacienda Vieja wanted to fix their water system, Carahuasi wanted to do the same, and Nanchoc wanted to rebuild the police station…which is literally about to fall down. All of which were reasonable with about S./22,400.

Then the other shoe dropped. The mayor realized he had forgotten to mention a few things that we’d have to take out of the budgeted money. S./34,400 for contractors and paying taxes on community work projects (yeah I didn’t understand it either). And then another S./ 15,000 for “extenuating circumstances” that could happen during the rainy season. Akaadded costs of fuel and the like from muddy roads. So…as a math major, I raised my hand…the first time I had done so the whole day. I figured it wasn’t really my place to decide where the money goes, I already had my latrine pitch, I was happy with that. But I raised my hand and said:

“Mr. Mayor, excuse me but I’m a little confused. You origionally said that we were going to be given S./134,400 for community projects is this correct?” “Yes,” he replied. “Ok, well that would have given us S./22,400 for each project, and we had planned the projects for today’s meeting based on that number. But now you are taking S./49,400 from the budget. That’s taking about 40% of the budget out of play.”

And then there was a silence. I waited a few seconds for him to respond, he said nothing…so I continued…

“So we went from having a little over S./22,000 for each caserio for a project, to S./14,166 for each project. That’s a big difference.”

You could see the wave of light bulbs clicking on in the room. I guess I was the only one who had done the math in their head. That’s when the disorder began…my bad. I won’t go into the details, but luckily it was all verbal arguments, aside from the slamming of a shoe (it came from a bag, not off a foot) to make a point, it didn’t get too violent. And after 3 hours of yelling it appeared that everyone just gave up. We weren’t going to get that S./49,400 back from the mayor. So it wasn’t worth anymore of or time fighting for it.

The meeting ended undecided the actual amounts that will be given to each project, the newly founded comities’ going to decide. And the council must have not held a grudge on my math, because they asked me to be the president of the town’s Patron Saint’s party. After being informed that that means having to organize everything, I said “no thank you” and left to head home to eat supper.

So why do I bang my head into the wall? Because it feels so good when I stop. That might have been a waste of my time…after all nothing was really accomplished…but it made a good story.