Creating the Outstanding Guatemalans section, what a Challenge.
We have only been on the air for 1 month, I should not be impatient. But our Outstanding Guatemalans are turning into a big challenge.
We have been able to observe a most peculiar sociological behavior of our fellow compatriot chapines.
There are two distinct groups. There are people who are used to being published, and then there are "the others".
The people who are used to be published send the information efficiently and quickly.
That has been one case so far.
"The others" are shy, modest, reticent, rebellious, and they account for 99% of the people who accomplish something in the world. None of them wants to be the first to be published or to appear at all.
We haven given this most peculiar sociological behavior of our fellow compatriot chapines a lot of thought. What could be the reasons behind it? There are always reasons.
I started to compare the upbringing of chapines and compare it to the Ticos and Americans.
Americans are encouraged to put absolutely everything on their resumes and promote themselves from a very young age.
The Ticos have learned this self promotion copying exactly what the Americans do. It works very well for them. They are in all the important Regional and International Development, Banking, Diplomatic and Political Organizations and they use their positions to mobilize all the resources they possibly can to Costa Rica.
They start the networking process when they are studying at the Universities abroad and they never stop networking.
They usually get the important events to be done in Costa Rica, which means revenues. They always are the organizers of the events, which means they get to dictate the agenda, meaning the Ticos speak for 20 hours and the rest of the participants have 2 hours. And the declaration at the end of the event is edited by Ticos according to their agendas.
So this is about having a culture of self promotion or not, as a country and as an individual.
If I had had a section of outstanding Ticos and asked for that information, they would have flow it in by helicopter, airplane, send it by DHL, send truckloads of material and be very cross with me if I didn't publish it all. They would be on the phone all day harassing me to publish, hundreds of e-mails would have flooded my computer already. And then some nice incentives would arrive to make sure such and such comes first. I have lived in Costa Rica, I know the system.
We chapines do not have this culture of self promotion or recognizing each others accomplishments.
The usual way to get an award or recognition in Guatemala ( if you are not that well connected) is if you are already death, in a coma, pre -coma or you have already one leg in the grave.
Then it is acceptable, nobody speaks ill of the death. So it is pretty save to give these people an award.
I am laughing at myself as I am writing this. We do have our peculiarities, and maybe it is good. I don't know.
The first person I will write about, because I can, is Pachita.
Pachita was with my family for almost 15 years in Guatemala. She is like 1.35 meters high, long black beautiful hair, brown eyes that look at you with a healthy dose of skepticism. She speaks in a short assertive manner and you better listen to what she has to say. She makes up her own mind about everything. She ran 5 households impeccably without blinking an eye and she can not read or write. We are the same age.
She was our emergency solution for everything, she was the best source of information of what was going on in the Colonia and in the family. Nothing escaped her.
We fixed roofs together, leaking toilets, stoves that had to be repaired, light bulbs that had to be changed, trees that we wanted to plant or chop down, rocks had to be moved, walls to be build. No task could ever deter her, She never asked for a favor, she preferred to do it herself. So did I. In the end we did so many things together having a very good time and the men just looked at us in astonishment.
We all fought over more of her time for our households and we would try to bribe her to spend more time with us. She was a hot commodity. But no bribe was big enough to influence her. If she liked you, she stayed with you, even if the pay was smaller, the rest got put on the backburner. Pachita has her principles.
Then suddenly she disappeared and all her family too. We had talked about her going to the "Norte" because she was tired of the lack of security in Guatemala. But I always thought we could do that in a save way, so I discouraged her to use the usual coyote and not go on that horrendously dangerous trip. I could get her visas somehow, I knew it.
Pachita got impatient, and obviously she made up her own mind. One day she was just gone. We spend a gut wrenching 3 months waiting for news. I had the most terrible images in my mind of her and her family in the desert, dying of thirst or being abused in a Mexican prison. I felt guilty, I felt responsible for not convincing her to be more cautious.
Then one day we got an e-mail from a friend who told us she was working for him and that all the family was safe. That friend's household was one of the five that Pachita had managed in Guatemala. He had moved to the USA a few moths before.
Pachita does not know how to read and write, Pachita never went to school, Pachita made it.
Now they are fighting over her time in Washington DC, and fat bribes are being paid to be her favorite. She still sticks to her principle of choosing whom she prefers to work for. She is cooking delicious Guatemalan food with the best original ingredients, where does she get them, only Pachita knows. She will probably end up in the home of the Speaker of the House of the US Congress and will influence important immigration issues by simply threatening to quit. Life without Pachita and her skills gets pretty miserable.
And I just have to smile and cry at the same time. Pachita made it. She will have a better future and opportunities for her children. Pachita is my hero, all 1.35 meters of her.
We miss her every single day. The only reason my little house is still standing is because of her. Que Dios te cuide y te proteja Pachita, a ti y a toda tu familia.
