This Crazy Place

This morning on the radio I heard something about people striking in front of the municipality something to do with the aseradero, or lumber yard, nearby. It was in guarani so that’s all I got. At 7am when I walked to school there were already 100 or so men with their motos parked in front of the municipality (mayors office), and the supervisora explained to me that the owner of the aseradero, a millionaire, had for some reason not been paying his electricity bill, and there was a change in the director of the state electrical company, and this new guy doesn’t mess around. So this morning the lights were shut off at the aseradero, leaving all these guys without work and thus money for the day. The crazy millionaire made his employees go to the muni to protest (threatening them with losing their jobs if they didn’t), even tho the muni actually has nothing to do with the national govt’s electrical situation, and apparently also is offering 100mil for random people to join in the protest.

It gets weirder. The lights have also been cut off to the municipality itself, apparently the former mayor was behind in his payments and this administration is stuck with the costs. But you would think as much as people are annoyed and mad at the electric company, there would be some semblance of understanding that the guys are just doing their job and that one has to pay one’s bills.

Apparently that is not the case. I just witnessed the electric company truck stop for a while down the street and then go by, followed by a caravan of dozens of cars and motos, including the mayor’s pickup full of city councilors. My two neighbors went to see what was up and then filled me in …. The electric company also came yesterday and shut off the lights for my neighbors who have not paid their bills, then apparently came again during the night to turn it back on, likely after receiving some sort of bribe. This pissed people off, as it should have. So now the situation is that they are going to block off the two roads in and out of Tacuati, effectively holding the poor electric company guys here, until his boss comes to negotiate the situation. Yes, it appears my mayor is participating in a hostage situation. The sadder part is that they could possibly go after the local representative of the electric company (more an electrician who contracts with them than an actual employee of the company), because his wife is a member of the Torres family and the opposite political party than the mayor and city council.

Now there’s some sort of meeting being broadcast over the radio station, I can’t tell who’s talking or really what they’re saying. The rep of the electric company said something about 85million in debt from 15 months ago. I’ll try later to talk to people I trust, but the chisme gossip is fierce here and I’m always skeptical of what I hear. I’d love to just ignore it all and take a nap, or be able to understand exactly what’s going on and who’s telling the truth, but I don’t think either of those is likely to happen any time soon.