Wish Me Some Serious Luck (May 26th, 2014)

So Monday came and went, and so too it seems have my hopes for getting money to help pay for the Pasos Adelante classes.  Monday morning I walked into the municipality full of hope.  Into the treasury I walked, confident that having spoken to the alcalde, I would be getting my money, no problem.

“Ah, pero señorita, no tengo los papeles necesarios.  Tienes que hablar con el gerente.”

--[Ah, but miss, I don’t have the necessary papers.  You have to talk to the gerente.]

Hmmm, why wasn’t I told last Wednesday that I had to talk to the gerente?

So I walk over to the gerente’s office and wait in line.  As I wait, the alcalde’s secretary walks by and tells me that she has to pass on the Thursday meeting’s notes to the gerente along with my original solicitud before I can talk to him.  Okay, I guess I’ll wait. After about five minutes, she passes him the papers and I walk in.  He happily greets, asks how I am, everything ever so pleasant. Yes, yes, we just have to type up the budget request into the proper format and then we’ll give that to the treasurer.  Return in the afternoon.

Oh the misgivings I had as I walked out of that office.  Being constantly told to come back later is not reassuring.  But who knows, maybe this really is just how it works.

No.  The way it works is that it doesn’t work.  The way it works is that Kassel is told when she returns to the municipality that, “Lo siento señorita, pero tengo malas noticias.” That’s right, he has bad news.  Turns out, there’s no money.  He begins to explain the process of the annual budget and the monthly subsidies from the national government and the restraints, constrictions, and challenges that the municipality faces.  Yeah, that’s great, possibly even true.  But over two months ago, I was promised money.  I acted upon that assumption.  I bought supplies with my own money assuming that I would be reimbursed later.  So, sir, I fully sympathize with your problems, but unfortunately I now have my own. 

In the end, I was told that in about a month there may be money.  But something in my gut tells me that next month I will be told to come back tomorrow, or later that afternoon, that there will be a certain essential document missing, and that well, you see miss, these things just happen.

But before I give up all hope and become the town’s local anarchist, I’m going to pester.  I’m going to ask for advice from the more influential people.  I’m going to smile and laugh.  I’m going to become a fixture at the municipality, because guess what?  I’m here for another eighteen months and I quite literally have nothing better to do than get that money.  Wish me luck. 

Besos!