The locals are restless. Living in Central America, one might expect the occasional civil unrest, and we sortof knew this kind of thing happens when we joind Peace Corps. But besides the stone-throwing incident, our time here has been EXTREMELY peaceful. After the civil war ended in 1996, the Guatemalans were pretty sick of violence and reverted to a pretty laid-back, pacifist lifestyle. Except in Guatemala City, where they have a gang problem. And we don’t go there.

Then Friday came along. Reports dribbled in from lots of different sources, and it seems that there was a secuestrado (kidnapping) last week in Soloma, and a contract killing in Barrillas, both towns about an hour from Santa Eulalia. These things happen in Guatemala sometimes, with CA$H being the primary motive. Anyways, on Friday the general citizenry somehow found out who was involved, and that the suspects live in Soloma (an hour in the other direction). Then, something bad happened. The police here are largely ineffective (poorly funded, unmotivated, and sometimes corrupt), so mob vigilante justice takes over if a criminal element gets too brazen and the people get fed up enough. In this case, the mob went to the guy’s house and “coerced” him to tell who his accomplices were. By the end of the evening, five of the kidnapping gang were dead. At least we hope they were actually the kidnappers, as there was no trial, obviously. We also hear that two escaped. Since usually only criminals can afford guns here, the mob either either kills their victims by axehandle and machete, or by lighting them on fire. For all you Spanish students, the applicable nouns here are linchamiento (lynching) and quemado (immolation, or burning). Update: We have since learned that three of the five killed were aged 14, 16, and 18. They were brothers, and their father (who escaped) is supposedly the ringleader of the gang. He turned up Sunday in Santa Eulalia, having hung himself in his girlfriend’s house.

Weird thing was, we were planning on going to Soloma yesterday to go to the bank. Our friend Pedro warned us that it might not be a good idea. “Really?” I asked him. “I wasn’t THAT worried for our safety; they know that Gringos aren’t involved in the local criminal element.” It’s nice of others to be concerned with us, and I agree it’s better safe than sorry, despite the fact that we’re pretty hard to mistake for locals.

“Actually,” he replied, “I was just thinking that the traffic will be terrible.” Nice.

So, that afternoon, our neighbor Manuel came over to tell us there’s been vandalism in our town! This sort of thing is unprecendented here, as we are WAY out in the boonies, and everyone here knows everyone else. Turns out, an abandoned house across the street from the Health Center (and about 50 yards from our house) was tagged pretty badly last night. It says nice things like pendejo, and vamos a pelear con todos de Temux and stuff like that. The handwriting and grammar are in general pretty 2nd-grade, but what can you expect- even our town leaders only got to third grade. Heck, i just think it interesting the graffitti was all in Spanish, not Q’anjob’al.

“Can you take fingerprints?” Manuel asked. “They do that in the US! We can catch these guys!”

I sighed a deep sigh. This man watches WAY too much CSI. “No, Manuel… they would have to have touched the house. And they only touched their brushes and spray cans, which we don’t have. Besides, we don’t have the tools or expertise for fingerprinting.” I didn’t mention that we also lack a massive computerized database of known offenders.

He seemed doubtful; perhaps I was withholding aid. “I bet the police in America could handle this.”

I apppeased him by giving a speech (in Spanish!) to him and the assembled townsfolk, a few dozen of whom had gathered since we started the discussion. “Yes, the police in the US would do something. They have specialists who take pictures of the graffitti, and keep a database, and match it up with other known samples. Then, do you know what they do?” I paused dramatically. “They paint it over immediately. This sends a message to whoever did it that they will not be successful with this attack. If you leave it, it will encourage more. You need to act now as a town to change this. I already took pictures of it, so we have them if we should ever need to compare it to others in the future.”

So, the next day I was at the store getting 4 eggs, and there was a BIG village meeting going on in the community hall across the street (bear in mind that ALL of this happens within a 200 yard radius; our town is pretty small). “What’s that all about?” I asked Palxun, the store owner.

He jerked his head to the next building up the road, the house that had been tagged. “They’re meeting about the damage from yesterday.”

The meeting went on for hours. At one point, we were visiting our neighbors, and we heard a HUGE ruckus down at the town hall. A half-hour later, Nas Palas returned, having attended the whole meeting. Turns out, everyone sortof figured out who did it (again, small town). Then, some other lady who is friends with the tagger’s mom said that SHE did it, apparently in a move to protect the kid. “Wait,” I asked. “That lady can’t even write, can she?” Turns out, the village elders thought of that angle too, and then the lady said she sent her daughter to actually do the painting. What a mess. I don’t know what the end result with the “guilty parties” will be, but no one was sharpening machetes or filling coke bottles with gasoline, so that’s a relief.

HOWEVER, this all has had a larger result, at the regional level. All of the alcaldes auxiliares (village vice-mayors) met in Santa Eulalia, and decided to re-institute “night watch patrols”, something they haven’t done since the war. It’s like a cross between our “Neighborhood Watch” and the Michigan Militia: bands of a half-dozen citizens walking the roads during the night, stopping anyone whot’s out, checking what their business is. Nas was quick to point out that they wouldn’t be responsible for “fighting crime”, they are there to watch for suspicious activity. And if someone is out and has some sort of emergency, the patrol is supposed to help. Males aged 12 and up are asked to be involved. Emily and I looked at each other like, “WHAT?!” then I realized, this might actually be a good idea. It teaches the kids about civic responsibility, and Lina then explained that there would always be a fair number of older, more responsible men in any given patrol. Hmmmm. Still don’t know exactly how I feel about that.

Of course, this could all be worse. I bumped into another volunteer when i was in Huehue last week, and she told me that she was hanging out in the city for a while because our security director told her to not go home for a few days, until things settled down. Turns out, the town up the street from hers (the one she has to change busses in) had a big shootout. I guess that’s what happens when you put a Mexican drug gang, a Guatemalan drug gang, a ton of alcohol, and a horse race together in the same place. The wrong guy won, and everyone broke out the AK-47s and grenade launchers. About 2 dozen people got killed. Thankfully, that kind of stuff doesn’t happen within 5 hours of where we are.

So, on that happy note, here’s a picture of the neighbor’s christmas tree next door.