The Elections - How did I end up here and what is going on?

Those are probably my two favorite questions. It means that I somehow ended up in a postion that stretches my comfort level a bit and that I’m going to chalk it up to “an adventure”. Tonight I found myself somehow at a quasi Poltical Ralley. Basically what happen was that my host family asked me if I wanted to go with them to get their voting number for tomorrow. I figured there was a non-partisan governmental office that took care of that. Nope. Best I can tell you go to a Party headquarters and you get your number to vote. We ended up going to a small courtyard for the party which Rigaburta Menchu is representing in the Presdiential race. While Jose Lois and Dina were doing there thing I was sitting uncomfotably watching a guy cut up what looked like some sort of business card for the party which had recently been run on a color printer. I was definitely getting some looks like..mostly what are you doing here? About 10-minutes after we got there a Powerpoint presentation started which covered the details on why Guatemala was poor and other countries were rich. I was trying not to pay attention since we are supposed to stay way far away from anthing approaching partisan politics, but I couldn’t help but listen to how India and Egypt are over 1000 years old and yet they are poor and New Zeland and Austrailia are less than 150 years old and they are rich. There was also some talk on how Switzerland is a very rich country and they make the world’s finest yaughts even though they are land locked. Somewhere along the way the Mayorial candidate offered me a CD-ROM and a color brochure, but I politiely declined it by feinding I didn’t know what he was saying in Spanish. In a strange way it kind of seemed like we were all locked in there, although it also may have been to keep people out. I was a little bit concerned about having my photo taken at the gathering, but I think with the history of this country they are probalby a bit camera shy when it comes to polticial events themselves. Although tempted, I left my camera in my pocket. As a person with a keen interest in poltics, I wish I could have been more of a fly on the wall, but it’s hard not to be noticed when you’re the tallest guy in the room by a good 3-inches and the only guy with blong hair and a bright blue Gor-Tex Rain coat.